


A Fool Off His Guard

by Velvedere



Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bond Trope, M/M, Master/Servant, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-05 02:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commonborn Thor and his friends have heard of a great power hidden somewhere in the mountains of Jotunheim. Whoever claims it will know success and glory in whatever they desire.</p><p>They don't yet know that power is a person.</p><p>(This in no way, shape, or form started out as ridiculous AU fic based on Disney's Aladdin. ...Nope. Not at all. Why would you even ask???)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Thor and the Warriors Three stood together in the cold wasteland that was the barren outskirts of Jotunheim.

It had not been easy, getting this far. None of it had been easy. Not determining the power’s existence. Not getting the artifact that would lead them to it. Not finding and bribing a ship’s captain brave enough – and mad enough – to take them where they needed to go.

But, as Thor firmly believed, if it had been easy, it would not be worth doing.

“Do you have it?” Thor had murmured, hunched forward over the outpost table among their drinks. Heavy cloaks hid their armor and weapons, or as much as could be hidden.

There was no concealing the fact they were Asgardians, and one Vanir. But if they pulled up their hoods and hunched enough, they fit in better with the rest of the disreputable tavern patrons. Enough that wandering eyes tended to avoid them.

“Had to bash a few skulls,” Fandral said easily, waving one hand. “But we have it.”

Thor smirked. He could barely stand the excitement coiling his stomach.

“Bashing, was it? Hardly your style.”

“Oh, it wasn’t me.” Fandral threw back another deep gulp of his ale. “Volstagg was only too happy to do the bashing while I slipped behind and lifted the pieces from their belt pouch.”

“There were only eight or ten of them.” Volstagg belched. “No trouble.”

“The other four he sat on,” Hogun mumbled.

Thor’s smirk split into a grin. He reached up to tug the hood of his cloak further down over his face.

“Well, let’s see it.”

Fandral reached for his belt and placed onto the table a golden sliver. Hogun and Volstagg did the same. The pieces were polished, sharp. As though they had been recently made and were not a thing spoken from legend.

They rested still, until Thor added the final piece. Then they began to tremble.

Fandral put his hand down between the slivers as they darted, tried to come together.

“We have to keep them separate,” he said. “But, as you can see, they’re genuine.”

Thor’s eyes were alight under his hood. His smile beamed, and he snatched up his piece into his fist.

“Then we shall all carry one, as a sign of our pledge.”

There were nods all around. A sense of tangible excitement as they took their pieces and clacked steins together for another drink.

“My friends, we’re going to Jotunheim!”

Now the cold wind tugged at their hair and cloaks. It bit at their skin. Thor lifted a glove to shield his eyes from blowing snow as he peered out over the landscape, a strange mix of dark sky and luminous white ground.

“This is a bad time,” Hogun said over his shoulder, having to raise his voice to be heard. “A storm brews.”

“It always storms here,” Thor said dismissively. He moved to lead the way, ducking his head to the wind. Behind them the black sea that met its shore on jagged, icy rocks pushed its waves against the gale, moved its tide inward despite the storm.

“Besides, the ship already left,” said Fandral.

There was nowhere to go but onward.

“Hope we paid the captain enough to pick us up again,” murmured Volstagg, his breath a great cloud trailing over flecks of ice in his beard.

“Do not worry, my friends!” Thor called back, cheerful despite the cold no amount of cloak or fur could keep out. “Once we have this power, we will return by our own means!”

Fandral chuckled.

“He’s so certain!”

“What do we do if he run into frost giants?” said Volstagg.

“Cut them down. Just like the last time.”

Thor nodded his head.

“These lands are uninhabited. Otherwise the Jotuns would have found it long ago.”

They braced themselves and trudged inland until the shore was no longer in sight.

Only then did they stop, and huddle together, each producing their piece of golden sliver.

“Now,” said Thor in preparation. “Let us see where fate leads us.”

He held his palm open, and the others placed their pieces into his hand. Immediately the gold took on a shimmer, despite the absence of any sun. Power thrummed and the slivers rolled together, seeking each other until they formed into alignment.

A snap cut the air, enough to make them all flinch back for caution.

The slivers formed what looked like a golden arrowhead.

It rose from Thor’s hand, turning and spinning in the air, glowing ever brighter as the edges between the slivers melted away, combining into a solid whole.

“Odin’s beard,” Volstagg gasped.

Then the arrowhead turned and shot into the distance with the speed of a loosed arrow, nearly taking half of Fandral’s moustache with it.

“After it!” Thor cried, and vaulted into the snow.

Volstagg had suggested they bring horses, but it was agreed even the finest Asgardian steeds would have been little use in the deep snows of Jotunheim.

“Carry you _and_ brave those drifts?” Fandral had laughed, patting Volstagg’s belly. “You would not be so cruel.”

Thor thought now perhaps they would have been of some use, after all. He drew from the deepest reserves of his strength to push through the piled snow and run after the fleeing arrowhead, finding rocks and more solid holdings so he did not sink up to the knee with every step.

But the arrowhead was quick, and by its light Thor could see it was rapidly outdistancing them.

“It’s getting away!”

“Oh, let me!” Volstagg bellowed, and knocked him aside with a shove. “Make way!”

Volstagg threw himself and his girth ahead, cleaving a path through the drifts better than any plough.

Thor, Hogun, and Fandral ran behind in the flat of wake he created, towards the ridge of dark mountains in the distance.

*****

They chased the arrowhead until it hit solid rock. But it did not stop there.

It sliced into black foundation stone and the layers of ice that covered it as though they were as impressionable as butter. It burrowed in, its light growing fainter and ultimately fading.

“Somewhere in these mountains,” said Thor, looking up. The imposing black ridge stretched beyond sight in either direction, its jagged tips like teeth biting into the low clouds overhead.

The storm had not lessened.

“There could be a cave...”

“Or Volstagg could gnaw his way after it?” Fandral suggested.

Volstagg heaved himself down upon a black rock, panting for breath after his exertion. Beads of sweat formed and froze on his brow.

“After an effort like that,” he gasped, “I should deserve such a mountainous snack.” He palmed a handful of snow and ate it.

“We should split up,” Fandral suggested. “We’ll cover more ground.”

“No,” mumbled Hogun. “The storm grows.”

“He’s right.” Thor looked to the sky. The clouds, which had been distant and far away when they arrived on the shore, hung low here. So low he imagined he could reach up and touch them without too much effort. The wind was less but the snow still fell in watery sheets. Almost pelting.

“We stay together. None of us should be lost in this wasteland.”

“You know, this snow isn’t half bad?” Volstagg smacked his lips. “Just a touch of mint.”

Fandral and Thor laughed. Anything to stave off the cold.

“Would that this power we seek smelled of mutton,” said Thor. “Then we would only need you to find it.”

“Aye.” Volstagg sat where he was, still catching his breath. “And what will you do if we find it?”

“When,” Thor corrected.

“Don’t you know?” Fandral tossed his hand. “Thor will enter a match in the arena and invite all of Asgard to see his defeat of the Einherjar!”

Fandral’s eyes slid across to Thor, who stood firmly despite the driving snow.

“Or at least invite the Lady Sif.”

Thor smirked.

“It is more than that,” he said, though he did not deny it. “The power will bring fortune and glory to us all. Believe me, my friends. Once we return it triumphantly to Asgard, there will be no end to the wine, women, and praise. We’ll all have a seat at Odin’s table. You’ll see!”

“I’ll settle for the wine,” Volstagg grunted. Bracing his hands to either side of him, he pushed himself up. “I could use a draught about now.”

“Yes. Too bad you drank it all on the ship.”

“Could I help it?” Volstagg slapped the rock beneath his palm. “You know traveling by sea upsets my stomach—”

A great rumble reverberated under their feet, bringing an abrupt silence to the banter.

All eyes turned toward Volstagg.

“Please,” Fandral winced. “Tell me that was your stomach?”

Volstagg said nothing, but turned to look to the black rock beneath his hand which, now that he bothered to take notice, might resemble very much the horn on the end of some creature’s great snout.

A crack ran along the ice caking it and similar surrounding rocks, dislodging a patch of gathered snow.

A red eye slid open beneath it.

“ _To arms_!” Thor cried, though his voice could not overcome the monstrous bellow that erupted as the beast broke free from its icy shell.

It rose, towering over them, the size of a dragon and covered in black, bony protrusions.

Volstagg threw himself away and went tumbling down the mountain slope.

Thor, Fandral, and Hogun drew their weapons, scattering into a quick formation.

The beast turned, its body one long coil of black as it swiped a clawed hand, gouging the rocks around it.

Fandral and Hogun threw themselves out of the way while Thor charged forward, sword lifted in both hands.

The beast neatly backhanded him with the same strike, slamming him into the mountainside.

Thor landed hard, collapsing rock and a pile of snow on top of him.

He shook snow from his head and pushed himself up once the realms reoriented themselves.

Thor glared down the mountain slope, watching as Fandral danced around the beast to draw its attention and Hogun struck at its underside, seeking a weak spot. Volstagg had meanwhile regained his feet and come running back up the slope. He hurled himself, axe and all, at one of the creature’s forelegs.

Then held on for dear life as the beast reared and kicked and snapped to try and shake him off.

Thor shouldered a massive rock from his back, and stood. He took only a moment longer to eye the gathering of boulders along the mountainside, some of them precariously perched. Then he readied his sword.

He cried out, gave a mighty swing, and struck at the ice holding them in place.

Cracks like spiderwebs formed along the ice. There was a sound like spines breaking.

Then the whole of it broke free and fell tumbling down towards where the beast stood, crashing against its head and feet.

His friends were quick enough to get out of the way – Thor would have been disappointed in them if they were not – and Thor’s sense of triumph rose from him in a victorious cry, his fist in the air for the Warriors Three to echo.

But it did not last long.

The beast shook its head, regained its senses, and turned to narrow a crimson-colored glare Thor’s way.

Thor welcomed the beast with a challenging sneer.

It scaled the mountainside with two enormous leaps, while Thor turned and dodged a fresh swipe of its claws.

He ran, leading it away, further into the narrow mountain pass.

*****

Thor did rather well for himself, he thought.

The going was tricky. The mountain slopes were steep and slippery, much of it covered in snow, the rest in ice. But jagged peaks and outcroppings of rock stuck out at odd angles and in every direction, providing excellent cover for Thor to duck behind as the beast hurled itself after him: a destructive tide of claws and strength.

“It is not cowardly to fight with intelligence,” Thor murmured to himself, soothing his bruised sense of honor as he ran. He was not running, truly. Only biding his time. To have stood in the open and faced the beast would have been a glorious battle, but a short-lived one.

 _I am not a coward,_ he repeated to himself, maintaining his focus. His intent. Looking for the proper sort of rock formation to suit his purposes. _I am not running. If only I was a greater warrior, I could face such a creature on my own. And I will be. As soon as I find this power..._

Ah. There it was.

Thor found a formation of rock broad and tall, and leaning again at a precarious angle.

Positioning himself at the base of it, he stopped, and turned to face the beast.

It snarled a guttural roar, and charged after him, shouldering aside boulders and icebound patches of stone.

Thor waited.

He caught his breath.

And he waited.

He stood his ground until he could see his reflection in the beast’s great red eye.

Only then did he turn, allowing the creature’s momentum to slam itself into the stone.

Another cry. Another swing of his sword with all his might.

The rock formation collapsed, fell forward, crushing the beast’s head.

Or at least knocking it senseless enough for Thor to rush in, and bury his sword to the hilt in the monster’s eye.

The beast shrieked, and screamed. It lashed out with one clawed paw and caught Thor across his front.

He stumbled back, winded, until his shoulders hit stone. He’d made sure to do as much damaged as he could withdrawing the sword as he did slashing in with it.

The beast took one step, knocked over another outcropping of rock, and died with a heavy collapse.

There came a moment’s quiet in the wake. Thor laughed. A breathy laugh. He felt a shiver cross his shoulders and back and attributed it to the waning rush of battle.

The silence allowed him to hear, clearly, and without mistake, the ground beneath his feet crack, and give.

Thor’s stomach lurched as the dead weight of the beast collapsed the layer of ice upon which they stood, formed around the rocks.

He began to fall.

There was time to cry out, though Thor doubted he would have been heard over the collapse of rock and ice shards. His reached his hands out, grasping at nothing, and could not even keep hold of his sword as all plunged into a deep, cold blackness.

*****

There was pain. So deep he could not separate it from the cold.

There was cold. It covered him. Left no part of him untouched, even the depths of his bones.

There was such cold and pain he could not even shiver.

He could see nothing. Above, cold. Below, cold.

He reached out his hand, but there was only more cold.

Thor felt a tightness in his throat. A pain behind his eyes.

He did not want to die here. Alone.

Unremembered.

He reached out his hand, gripped something solid – he knew not what – and pulled.

He pulled himself inch by agonizing inch, the cold numbing his body to pain only to replace it with an even more painful cold.

At last he could lift his head.

He saw a light.

Faint, greenish light. Like he would see in the nebulas above home.

The entrance of a cave. The light came from within.

Thor dragged himself towards it. Perhaps he opened his mouth. Cried out. He could not hear his own voice for the cold freezing his ears.

He reached his hand up, finally finding that light.

It lined the cave entrance, played strangely upon the too-pale shade of his battered skin.

There he collapsed, his strength abandoning him. Even his lungs had become too soaked with cold to breathe.

Darkness closed in again.

The last thing Thor felt was a pair of hands upon him, pulling him inside.

*****

Thor stood among the gathered crowd that was all of Asgard.

He couldn’t see a blasted thing through the guards lining single file along the stone road, no matter how he strained or ducked. Nor did the pressing bodies of a hundred other citizens trying to do the exact same thing on all sides help matters.

Thor blew loose hair from his face as one larger fellow – a blacksmith by the looks of him – promptly shoved him back to gain the better vantage point.

Were he at his full height, the brute would not be so bold. Thor was certain.

“Thor!” he heard in Fandral’s voice, and spotted his friend, waving from the edge of a fountain. “Here!”

Thor found his grin again, and wove through the crowd to join them. The trio had landed a spot along the edge of an elaborate fountain that formed the centerpiece of the city square.

Volstagg was a good and loyal companion. Useful for many things.

Procuring seats in a crowd was one of them.

If his size did not dissuade anyone else from arguing with the trio’s location, then a glare from Hogun would.

Fandral patted the spot they had saved for him. Thor climbed up onto the stone.

Hanging onto one of the fountain’s branched carvings, the four of them could see clearly over the heads of the crowd and the row of lances formed along the guards’ watch. Already horses were passing through the cleared road on their way to the citadel, mounted figures upon them dressed in fine armor that glinted in the sun.

The crowd cheered and shouted for the triumphant return of their soldiers.

The war at last was over.

The captain of the Einherjar led them, the very image of valor.

“Just look at them,” Volstagg sighed, patting his full belly. He had enjoyed the celebrating most of all. “They’ll all be carved statues in no time.”

“Could you just see the lot of us dressed up in that plumage?” Fandral laughed. “Like a flock of birds.”

“You would fit right in,” teased Thor. Though in truth his heart was not in the jest.

He searched the procession for a very different sort of warrior.

Odin Allfather, King of Asgard, received the loudest cheering of all as he appeared near the end of the procession. Royal banners unfurled in his wake, gleaming colors of gold and white, blown on a wind that seemed to bow to Odin’s authority, following at his pace. The gleam of his helm turned in the sun as he swept a single eye over his people, nodded once to them. The famed spear Gungnir rested at his side, and two crows circled overhead.

But that was not where Thor looked.

He looked to the dark-haired beauty riding just at Odin’s flank.

As finely armed and armored as any of the Einherjar warriors, Lady Sif shone with ten times the radiance of them all. Her hair had been braided back for the occasion, kept from her face and lined with golden weave. Her eyes swept the crowd with the same royal appreciation with which her father bestowed, though she possessed yet none of his wizened look of age.

The tone of her arm and hold of her posture in the saddle spoke of a tried and true warrior.

Thor sighed, and felt a lightness of the heart in his chest.

It did not go unnoticed.

“Oh dear,” Fandral hummed. “I do think our dear Thor is in love.”

Volstagg shook his head.

“Poor boy. You aim too high.”

“One can hardly blame him.” Fandral stroked his beard, nodding thoughtfully. “Any man would give his arm to be that horse right now.”

“She would break you,” Hogun mumbled.

“Not to worry, my friends,” said Thor, not taking his eyes from the sight. Not until the parade had long passed and the soldiers along with their king and warrior princess made their way into the citadel.

“Some day we’ll be Einherjar. The crowds will know our names and faces as well as the heroes of old.”

The massive gates closed behind them. Those golden gates that separated the noble and valorous from the commoners.

“Some day.”

*****

Thor woke to the sound of a fire. To the smell of cooking meat.

Thick furs covered him.

He could see his breath on the air. He could see the flicker of green fire light glisten upon icy walls.

He was in the cave.

He lifted his head, but managed only a little. His chest ached and felt restricted. Pushing back the furs, he could see a swath of bandages covered his skin. Places where his wounds had been treated.

His cloak and garments had been strung up along one wall, near the fire, as though to dry.

He did not see his sword.

He did he, however, see the dark outline of a figure only barely concealed in the recesses of the cave’s depths, where the firelight did not quite reach.

Thor readied himself, and threw back the furs with one arm. He rose to a readied crouch, bringing his hands to bear as weapons enough.

“Show yourself, Jotun!”

His voice echoed strangely in the cave. Too late did it occur to Thor there might be more frost giants than just the one, hiding deeper beyond.

The dark shape moved only a little. Thor could see red eyes catch the light as it shifted, like an animal at the edge of a hunter’s torch.

“I am no Jotun,” said a voice. Soft. Oddly not unpleasant.

“Show yourself,” Thor repeated. He did not ease from his crouch, despite the pull of the wrap around his chest. “Or will you hide in the shadows like a coward?”

The sound of a footstep barely scraped the cave floor. The figure moved forward, touching a hand upon a rock. Thor saw deep blue skin come into the light, and the raised markings and red eyes of a frost giant. No other being could have worn little more than bracers and a fur wrap around their waist in this kind of cold.

And yet, there was also hair. Long, dark hair that framed the face and lighted upon sharp cheekbones and chin.

Thor had never seen hair on a Jotun before.

A woman? No. There were no women among the frost giants.

If there were, Thor could never tell them from the men.

He smirked.

“Rather small for a frost giant,” he said.

“I told you,” said the figure. “I am no frost giant.”

“Then you look like one.”

Thor eased his stance, only a little. His ribs had begun to ache. But he would not admit to such weakness in front of a Jotun, and beckoned the figure closer to the fire. The Jotun carried no weapon. They could be just as dangerous without them, Thor knew, but this one was so slight, and looked frail by comparison...

“Come closer,” he said. “Let me see you.”

The figure did not move.

“I should not,” it said. He? She? Thor was still not certain.

“Why?”

“The fire. It...pains me.”

“Ha! Then you are a Jotun! Fearful of heat and flame?” Thor looked to the fire, ready to grab a stick or branch from its base with his free hand to use as a torch, perhaps jab it at the frost giant to get it to flee, but then he saw.

The fire burned from no source. There was no pile of wood or fuel beneath the flames. They stemmed only from a faint green light upon the icy floor.

But the heat it produced was real enough.

Thor frowned, and looked back to the figure.

“Did you do this?”

The figure nodded.

Thor supposed it made sense. There was not much on Jotunheim that could have been used as a fuel source to start a fire. Why would a Jotun build one in the first place?

He looked back towards the entrance of the cave. The storm still blew outside, snow piling at the cave’s mouth, wind whipping coils of it up into the air. But he could not feel its effects. He could scarcely even hear it.

He looked up. Strained his eyes to see in the dark.

A pattern of runes glowed that same shade of green over the cave’s entrance. They lined the space along the floor, too.

Now that he looked, in fact, they were everywhere.

“What is this place?” he breathed, and noticed again his breath upon the air.

“My home,” said the figure, very quietly.

Thor looked to the fire. The sleeping mat and pile of fur blankets. His drying clothes. The roasting meat upon a spit.

His stomach growled suddenly.

His frown deepened.

“It was you,” he breathed, and turned back. “Why?”

“You had just made it to the mouth of the cave,” said the figure, “when you collapsed.” Then, after a pause: “You would have died.”

Thor grunted a dismissal, frustrated at the reminder. He dropped his guard at last and turned to kneel beside the fire to warm himself. He had started to shiver standing too far from it.

He also helped himself to the meat, if only as an excuse to avert his eyes.

“All this trouble to save an Aesir,” he huffed, wiping his beard and licking stray juice from his fingers. The meat was quite good. “I suppose that’s not very Jotun like.”

“I am not a Jotun.”

“So you’ve said.” Thor glanced back over his shoulder. “What are you, then? Some sort of lesser cousin?” He laughed. “You certainly aren’t near any of the Jotun settlements. We didn’t think anything lived out here.”

“We?” said the figure. “There are more of you?”

“Yes. My friends. They are...” His voice trailed off as Thor looked to the entrance of the cave, his enjoyment of the meal quickly soured by the memory of his comrades.

He hoped they were alright.

“We were separated.”

“They will be alright.”

Thor’s glare darted up, quick to find suspicion again. He glared at the figure and bit down on the strip of meat he’d torn between his teeth for emphasis.

“What do you know of it?”

The figure took a step, and knelt down, more exposed to the firelight. Thor could see then the glint off of crude jewelry around the Jotun – or not-Jotun’s – neck, and similar intricate beadings woven into his hair.

(Thor mentally decided on ‘he,’ if only because the figure was bare chested and showed nothing to suggest female anatomy.)

He reached out and drew a circle with his finger upon the ice. Then he traced a few markings in the same way. The runes began to glow, and the circle alighted, its gleaming interior shifting, forming into shapes and scenery.

Thor stared, wide-eyed.

The word “sorcerer” slipped immediately through his thoughts, if not from his mouth.

The Jotun did not look up, but moved his hand over the circle. Its image rose into the air and Thor saw within it the huddled figures of Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg.

They were in one of the outposts, blankets tight about their shoulders and their feet in warm water as they fought off the lingering cold. They hunched together, speaking in hushed voices. Thor could hear them and the sounds of the surrounding tavern, though not enough to know what was being said.

“A trick,” he growled.

The Jotun passed his hand through the image, and it faded.

He met Thor’s eyes with a flat look of his own.

“They are your companions,” he said. “Not mine. How would I know them?”

True, they had been separated before Thor reached the cave. But what if this figure had been watching them the entire time? What if he had summoned the storm? Or freed the beast?

Thor looked down to the cut of meat still in his hand. If it had been poisoned, he did not yet feel its effects.

If the Jotun had wanted him to die, he could have left him to the storm.

“Your friends are well,” the Jotun said. “They’ve made it to one of the outposts on the borderlands.”

“Very well,” Thor grunted, allowing the concession. “Now put an end to the storm and I’ll be gone from here.”

“The storm is not my doing.” The Jotun stood from his crouch. Even lifted his chin to look down at him. “Though if you wish to try braving it again, you’re welcome to leave.”

Thor grumbled, and took another bite of meat.

“Then you’re not sorcerer enough to put a stop to it?”

To his disappointment, the Jotun did not rise to the taunt. He only turned and retreated back into further darkness, away from the fire’s light.

Thor focused on his meal, preparing himself to settle in for what was going to be a very long wait.

*****


	2. Chapter 2

Thor sat near the cave’s entrance, watching the snow.

It was true. The storms never quite ended in this part of the realm. The snows only rose and lessened: at times a soft caress of falling white, other times driving sheets of freezing rain. For now, the wind had ceased. The snow fell as gently as it did on Asgard in early winter.

Thor set his chin against his hand, brow furrowed as he thought.

“Then you have no idea how long you’ve been here,” he said, his summation of the story the Jotun had just told him.

The Jotun crouched further back in the cave, near where the fire had been. He had put the flames out, but drawn other runes along the stones to warm the interior to a level Thor found tolerable.

It was just one of many things he had shown Thor he could do.

Now he sat cross-legged, mending a tear in Thor’s cloak.

“No,” he said softly, and left it at that.

Thor looked to him. Despite the eventual conversation they had struck, the Jotun had yet to tell him exactly why he had pulled Thor in from the storm, fed him and warmed him and tended his wounds.

But he spoke about a great deal of other things.

He spoke of abominations, and ancient times, and the war between Asgard and Jotunheim before it had ended.

That was...Odin’s beard...that was _ages_ ago.

He spoke of being sealed away – forgotten – when he was no longer useful.

“I fail to see how a skilled magic user could ever not be useful,” said Thor.

The Jotun had smiled, distantly, glancing towards a spot on the wall and probably years into the past.

“When one’s power becomes greater than those in power, usefulness quickly turns to fear.”

“You’re truly that powerful?”

The Jotun smiled. Thinly.

“Why not just kill you?”

“Oh, they tried,” he said, and chuckled. “They did try.”

“You could have killed them.”

The Jotun made a neutral hum. He bent over his task, pulling needle and twine through the thick material of Thor’s cloak with quick, confident gestures.

“Sentiment,” was all he said.

Thor frowned, watching him a moment longer. He folded his arms over his chest, settling his back against the rune-warmed rocks.

“If you are so powerful, then why mend that by hand?” he challenged, determined to find some fault in the Jotun’s story. It was difficult to believe already but, if it was true, then the giddy excitement steadily growing in Thor’s stomach would not be contained.

“Some things do not require magic.” The Jotun held up the cloak once he was done.

He gave it a tug to make sure the stitching would hold.

“There.”

Then folded it neatly and set it aside.

Thor lingered as he was a moment longer, studying the frost giant intently. He had seen a great deal. He had seen the Jotun cast illusions and view things from afar and summon and dispel fire with his hand and heat rock better than a midday sun. He had power. Of that there was no doubt.

And if what he spoke about the war was true...

Thor stood, and took the few steps needed to cross the cave to where the Jotun sat.

Arms crossed, he looked down at him. Excitement by then had crept up from his stomach and spilled onto his face, forming itself into a broad grin.

“You are the power I have come here to find,” he proclaimed.

The Jotun looked up, blinking twice with a blank look on his face.

To which Thor beamed.

“My friends and I have often heard tales of a power hidden in this realm,” he said, giddiness and anticipation making his words nearly rush together. “A power Jotunheim used in the war against Asgard, but which was lost, and buried forever when they were defeated. The stories say the power still hides here, waiting to be found. They say it can imbue whoever possesses it with endless strength, and the possibility to do anything!”

The Jotun frowned.

“Did the stories say this power was a person?” he grumbled.

Thor laughed.

“We have spent years searching for the way to this lost power! We found the map in an artifact that, when put together, was said to point the way.” The grin on his face stretched so wide Thor thought he might split. “And it led me to you.”

“The golden arrow?” The Jotun’s eyes grew wide. “You found it?”

“Oh yes. And unless you have lived in these mountains so long you can point me in another direction, I’d say that you are the lost power.”

The Jotun said nothing. He sat, stunned.

“Which means you are coming back to Asgard with us.”

“What.”

It was not a question so much as a statement. The Jotun shut his mouth, and shook his head, as though in doing so reorienting his senses.

Thor barely took notice. He had already turned away to examine the runes over the cave’s entrance and floor.

“The first thing we must do is get you out of here. You said these runes are to prevent you from leaving?”

“Yes,” said the Jotun, very quietly.

“What will happen if you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you tried?”

“Of course I’ve tried!”

“I cannot read them.” Thor frowned at the glowing green sigils, as though squinting would help his comprehension of the foreign spell. “What do they say, exactly?”

The Jotun sighed. He turned his face lightly away, reciting with the ease of something long memorized.

“They say I cannot leave but by the hand of another,” he breathed. “The hand of one worthy. If I do, I am bound to that hand.”

“Worthy?”

The Jotun nodded.

“Not just anyone may take me from this place. The deep magic must decide their worth.”

“Does that mean...” Thor glanced back over his shoulder, only a sliver of nervousness making it to his eyes. “...others have tried?”

The Jotun nodded.

“What happened to them?”

Red eyes slid up to meet Thor’s, sober in their depths.

“Nothing good,” the Jotun said.

Thor shook off the sudden urge to shudder. He would not give in to the chill. He turned back to study the runes instead, folding his arms.

“What does it mean, ‘bound to the hand?’”

“It’s a condition of the spell.” The Jotun shook his head. “Should anyone prove worthy enough to free me from this place, I would be bound to them in servitude. My powers would not be my own.” He made a small sound, something like a laugh, and looked down. “A way for my old masters to make certain I didn’t return to haunt them.”

“Well, then there’s no problem at all.”

Thor’s body felt alight. He turned, knelt, and picked up his cloak. With a grand gesture he tossed it around his shoulders to settle it into place, and posed.

“You’ll not find a worthier soul in all the Nine Realms than I!”

The Jotun did not look impressed.

“Certainly not as arrogant,” he mumbled.

Thor grinned. He refused to let his confidence waver. He beckoned the Jotun after him as he turned back to the cave’s entrance, inadvertently framed by its slate gray walls.

“There will be no change to your station if I fail. Come along!”

The Jotun still didn’t move.

“If you fail,” he said, “the magic could kill you.”

“There’s nothing for it but to find out, is there?”

The Jotun frowned, continually deeper. But he did stand, slowly, a bestial wariness in his posture as he eyed Thor, and the cave mouth beyond.

“Suppose it does work,” he allowed, his words just as careful. “What then? I am bound to you and to your will, never free to do as I please. I may as well trade one set of shackles for another.”

Thor’s grin would not abate.

“If I am your master, then it would stand to reason I could release you from my service at any time,” he said, proud of his logic. “Though if you would truly prefer, you could stay here.”

He watched as the Jotun glanced over his surroundings with sudden reproach. Not quite disdain, but, perhaps, with a yearning.

Just how long had he been here?

Thor held out his hand.

“Come with me,” he beckoned, softer. “Help me achieve my goals. When that is done, you will be free to go your own way.” There his voice dipped, heavy with meaning: “I give you my word.”

The Jotun looked at him. It was a look Thor could not quite name. Hesitant, for sure. But a flicker of light further back in that crimson gaze gave him hope.

He reached for it, in hand as well as in heart. Encouraging.

Both of them, it seemed, wanted to believe.

The Jotun’s brow still furrowed as he slid out his hand, placed it gently in the warm encapsulation of Thor’s.

“Alright,” he whispered on a breath long held.

Thor felt the warmest he’d been since setting foot on Jotunheim. His smile jubilant, he closed his fingers around the slim blue wrist and gripped once, firmly, before turning and leading the way to the cave’s entrance.

His said nothing. His look spoke all.

He led the way, and eyed the runes as they drew close.

They glowed more intently at the nearing presence of the Jotun. But Thor did not release his hand.

“Perhaps I should carry you across?”

“You will do no such thing,” the Jotun muttered.

They drew closer. Thor put one boot over the line of runes at the cave’s floor. They flared bright, flashing their green warning.

The Jotun hesitated. Thor felt the resistance in his wrist.

He paused, only enough to look back at him, refusing to let go.

Thor urged him on, instead. Gentle and coaxing and relentless. He stepped the rest of the way over the barrier, and turned, looking back to him.

Thor had no skill with magic. He’d never given it as much consideration as he had a well-made sword in his hand. But he could feel it then.

He could feel...something. An energy that made the air tense as he drew the Jotun’s wrist after him.

“Wait,” the Jotun whispered, reeling back at the last moment before his hand brushed over the barrier.

It was too late.

The runes erupted. Their light flared, blindingly bright. Thor felt the tension in the air snap all at once. He reeled as though struck.

Then he heard the sound of several frozen rocks along the cave’s mouth cracking, breaking free of the ice that held them.

He made a sound of effort and yanked the frost giant forward, pulled him against him. He threw the both of them back and well out of the way as a portion of the mountainside growled and collapsed, burying the cave beneath it.

As snow and dust settled, Thor remembered to breathe.

He titled his head lightly down to where the Jotun clung to him, shivering.

Their hands burned where they remained clasped. Even so, Thor could not begin to think to let go.

The quiet of snowfall filled in around them.

After a moment, the Jotun lifted his head, and looked back towards the cave.

They were out.

They had made it.

Thor laughed. It was all he could do in the wake of what felt like something profound.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

The Jotun returned his look to him, wide-eyed in disbelief. For a moment he didn’t answer. He only looked lost, as though still grasping at the realization he had finally left the cave. Or he was surprised that Thor would ask.

He was silent for so long Thor worried he’d forgotten.

“Loki,” he finally said, shuddering a gasp. He did not let go of him, but dug his fingers into Thor’s heavy tunic where he held on, until his shaking calmed. “My name is Loki.”

Thor draped his cloak half around him, and together they walked away from that place, the footsteps left behind them quickly filled in by snow.

*****

“He was the greatest of us all,” said Volstagg morosely, slumped over a mug of ale. “The greatest man I’ve ever known.”

“It couldn’t be helped.” Fandral shook his head. “It couldn’t have been helped.”

“If only we hadn’t lost sight of him...”

Hogun said nothing.

The three of them sat around a table at a tattered tavern outpost, half-finished drinks in their disinterested hands as they largely ignored the scoundrels and conversations taking place around them. Set with prominence at the center of the table was the broken hilt of a sword: all that they had found in their search for their friend and companion among the collapsed rocks and icy body of the slain mountain beast.

“What will we do now?” Volstagg moaned.

“Nothing we can do.” Fandral shrugged one shoulder. “Go back to Asgard, I suppose. Continue on, as we’ve always done.”

“It won’t be the same without him.”

Volstagg took another deep drink of his ale.

“I’ll never call a man brave or valorous again,” he mumbled, “unless he can compare to Thor’s last act in this Norn-forsaken place.”

A gloved hand came from behind to rest gently on Volstagg’s shoulder.

“A bold claim, stranger,” said a rough voice. “Yet you look stricken by grief. What woes have befallen you?”

The voice belonged to a hideous-looking troll. It loomed over Volstagg’s shoulder, long nose and scraggily hair both spilling out from a dark, ratty hood that did nothing to hide its warts and gnarled teeth.

Volstagg nearly choked on the thing’s breath.

“It’s...nothing, friend,” he managed, reeling and finding solace in his mug. “Nothing of concern to you.”

The troll had a second one with it, smaller and slighter, which stood back and remained silent as the first pressed on.

“Oh, but anything that should befall such great warriors of Asgard is of concern to me,” it hissed. “I could not help but overhear. Tell me...who is this person you speak of?”

“A...dear friend of ours,” said Volstagg, after some hesitation. He looked down to his mug of drink, woefully near empty. “He died, out there in the frozen wastes.”

The troll tilted its head.

“Ah. Certainly the icy realm of Jotunheim has claimed many,” it said, and poured Volstagg more drink from a passing pitcher. “What is so special about this one?”

“Don’t you have some children to frighten?” grumbled Fandral.

But Volstagg had already taken another drink, and launched into his tale.

“This was no ordinary warrior of Asgard,” he said after a belch. “This was Thor. He was the bravest lad I’ve ever known. The bravest lad any realm has ever known! I’ve known him since he was no bigger than a colt, running through the streets chasing after bullies and catching rats for his meals.”

“Hardly sounds impressive,” said the troll.

“Mind your tone!” Volstagg growled. Already a tightness had wound into his voice. Tears crept at the edge of his eyes. “I remember seeing with my own eyes this swaggering, rag-clad youth fight off a band of three – no, five thieves single-handedly! They had stolen a bit of fruit from a merchant.”

“I see. And he returned the wares to their proper owner?”

“Of course not! A prize fought for and won is a prize rightly kept! So I’ve always said.” Volstagg sniffled, and dragged one arm across his eyes. “But do you know what he did?”

“Do tell,” said the troll.

“He gave it to a bunch of orphans! Poor souls. He saw them standing there so hungry and just couldn’t bear to let them go. So he gave all that precious food up, even though he’d earned it proper. That’s when I said to myself: Volstagg, this one is worth looking after. Take him in. Teach him everything you know. Especially the value of a good meal.”

“After the fight the fruit was in no shape to return to the merchant anyway,” Fandral said over the edge of his mug.

The troll nodded slowly, and dragged its tongue over its teeth.

“I can see the merit your friend deserves.” It curled gloved fingers together. “But surely he did more than feed a few orphans, to earn such grieving?”

“Oh, much more!” Volstagg took another swig. “I once saw him fight off a harpy with little more than a tree branch!”

“Saw him,” commented Fandral, “because you made no offer to help.”

“He had the situation well in hand! Then there was the time on Muspelheim with the dwarves...”

“And on the marauders’ ship the time we were captured...”

“And the island of that sorceress. Do you remember? Oh, the feast that traitorous wench served! Before she tried to turn us all into pigs.”

“I see.” The troll hissed again, and nodded. “Deeds worthy of song, for sure.”

“For legends.” Volstagg sniffled again. “Oh, Thor. If only I had been a little less voluminous, I could have kept up with you...”

“It is a shame,” said the troll.

By then Volstagg’s tankard was empty again. He flung it away, and threw himself down into his arms on the table, where he wept openly.

“And he was the only man to ever best me in a mutton-eating contest!”

Fandral patted his back, but there was no consoling him.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he growled the troll’s way.

The troll shrugged, and bowed its head, touching one hand over its chest.

“My condolences. Truly. From my heart,” it said. “It sounds as though you have truly lost the best among you.”

“The greatest!” Volstagg wailed. “We are nothing to compare!”

“Perhaps a round of drinks is in order?” the troll went on to suggest. “In memory of this dearly departed...what did you say his name was?”

“Thor!” Volstagg thumped his fist against the table. “Thor, lad! I’m so sorry! Yes! Yes, a drink for any man here who will join in a toast! Oh, Thor...” He sniffled and wiped at his moustache. “If only I’d known this would be our last adventure together! I would have broken out that keg we’ve been saving...”

Throughout the ruckus Hogun sat quietly, only moving his drink out of the way before Volstagg knocked it from the table with all his flailing.

Hand to his chin, he frowned, and chose that moment to reach out and yank down the hood of the troll’s cloak.

Without it, the hunched and crooked bulk of the troll seemed somehow...smaller. Hair the color of spun gold spilled out over the cloak’s material – not nearly so ratty and worn as it had appeared a moment ago – and blue eyes shone over a smile so bright and clear none of the Warriors Three could guess at how they had ever missed it.

Thor laughed so hard he very nearly fell over.

“Oh, Volstagg! My corpulent friend!” Thor clapped him heartily on the back. “Don’t you know? The rest of us broke into your wine cellar and finished off that keg ages ago!”

“Thor,” mumbled Hogun, with a twitch at his lips. Whether it was a smile or a frown was difficult to say.

“Hogun!” Thor turned his smile to greet him as well. “How did you know me?”

Hogun tapped two fingers against his chest.

“Troll hearts aren’t here,” he muttered.

Thor laughed.

Volstagg picked himself up from the table. He caught his breath and blinked his vision back into focus as he looked the smirking youth over, taking a moment to decide he was real.

“Thor?” He sniffled away the last of the red from his cheeks. “Is that really you?”

“There is no other.” Thor crossed his arms and grinned. “It’s heartening to see the three of you are going through such efforts to recover my corpse.”

“Thor!” Volstagg rose and swept him up into a massive hug, squeezing so tight that for a moment Thor lost all ability to breathe. “Thor, lad! I’m so glad to see you returned to us in the flesh! And nary a mark on you! I’m going to buy you a drink, my boy, and then I’m going to bash your head in on this table.”

Fandral laughed with them and clapped Thor on the shoulder, relief evident in them all. Though he noted a little more quickly than Volstagg the slimmer, quieter figure standing a step or two behind, where the second troll had been.

“Who’s this?” he gestured.

“Oh, that?” Thor laughed, still partially beneath Volstagg’s arm. “My friends, that is the answer to all of our problems.”

A slim blue hand appeared, and lifted to push the cloak’s hood just enough to reveal the face beneath.

A trio of faces fell slack.

“A frost giant,” said Fandral, careful to keep his voice low. They had already attracted enough attention with Volstagg’s outbursts. “You brought one here?”

Thor still grinned. Though he, too, was careful to speak in a hushed tone.

“Not to worry, my friends. I will explain everything.” He shouldered himself free of Volstagg’s hold and gestured upward, towards the floors of tavern above the main room. “Fetch us more drink, and let us retire somewhere more private. There is much I have to tell you.”

*****

Twilight crept over the realm’s borders as the five of them retreated to an upstairs room they had bought for the night.

Thanks to Fandral’s flirtations with the innkeeper’s wife, they had managed to land a cheaper rate than was the usual.

Loki stood at the room’s single window, arms crossed as he looked out into the waning light. The land here was strange, straddling the transition between Jotunheim and its closest neighbors. The dark mountains were scarcely visible in the distance, though the overcast sky still blew a faint snow. The effect of the clouds capturing what light remained created an oddly glowing landscape both above and below, slashed through with a black horizon.

It didn’t matter that the land was bare, or that the tavern building was a haphazard construction of scrap materials, soiled by the comings and goings of so many races.

Loki was transfixed.

The others sat around the cramped room, listening as Thor told them what happened in the cave.

Volstagg chuckled and elbowed a stone-faced Hogun as they listened, nursing a fresh drink.

“I knew it,” he said, gurgling cheerfully. “I knew our Thor wouldn’t be eaten by a beast so easily. Knew it the whole time.”

“Hrnn,” said Hogun.

“So you brought him here.” Fandral glanced warily across the room to where Loki stood. “To what end?”

“Don’t you see?” Thor was still grinning. Still lighting upon anticipation of what they would yet do. “This is our chance! He is the key to making ourselves known. With his help we can show the nobility what we’re made of. The Einherjar be begging us to join their ranks!”

“How, exactly?”

Thor laughed, rather conspiratorial, and glanced Loki’s way.

Loki didn’t look back.

Fandral frowned.

“You’re certain we can trust him? He’s a Jotun.”

“I’m certain.” Thor nodded. “We have an agreement. I rescued him from the cave, and he will help us secure our place in the citadel. It’s as simple as that.”

“And if we’re caught it’s the axe for us all.” Fandral did not sound convinced.

“He’s awfully skinny,” Volstagg observed, looking the frost giant over with a raised brow. “How will he be of any help?”

Thor grinned again, and straightened. He turned just enough to place Loki in his sights, and waved his hand. As one might beckon a servant.

“Loki! My friends and I are famished. We could use a hot meal.”

Loki at last turned away from the window. Having shrugged off the cloak he’d been wearing upon their arrival, the light from without caught upon his skin. It reflected strangely, the scarlet shade of his eyes all but eclipsed in black.

Like ice on a clear night, Thor thought.

Loki’s hand had lifted at some point, toying with the crude jewelry at his throat. His other he moved in a simple gesture – barely a sweep of his arm, as effortless as batting away a fly – and all at once there appeared a feast.

Plates. Trays. Bowls. They settled upon every available surface of the small room, piled high with freshly steaming food, the sight and smells of which rivaled the famed kitchens of Aegir.

The sound of a heavy keg thumped into place at the room’s center.

Volstagg’s eyes were immediately wide.

“Well, that seals it,” he said, overwhelmed in a moment’s burgeoning love. “He can stay!” He helped himself straight away to half a roasted boar.

Hogun blinked a moment before he frowned suspiciously at a bowl. He reached for it, swirling its contents, and looked down at what appeared to be stew. Then took a careful sip.

A moment, and he nodded, finding it agreeable.

Thor looked extremely proud.

“You see?” he beamed aside to Fandral. “This is no ordinary Jotun.”

Fandral gave a considerate glance, then had to admit he was impressed.

“Very well,” he allowed, stroking his beard. “But can he summon something of more value? Say...a weapon?”

“I could,” answered Loki, cutting off Thor before he could speak for him. It was the first time the others had heard his voice. “But it would not be as worthwhile as attaining the real thing.”

“How so?” Fandral frowned.

“The nature of magic is fleeting. It lasts only as long as its source.” Loki swept his hand over the room. “I can conjure this food, and it will sustain you, but only as long as I sustain it. Eventually it will wear off, as a true meal does.”

“So conjure a weapon you could sustain,” Fandral argued. “It seems the same principle. A conjured sword could cut as conjured food could nourish.”

“It could. But then a degree of my concentration would be dedicated to always maintaining that sword’s existence. I would be less successful in my other efforts. And you...” There his eyes shot towards Thor, though Fandral knew not why. “...would find yourself weaponless in the event of my failing. Or removal.”

There was a moment’s quiet that stretched on, filled only by the sound of Volstagg’s contentment. Fandral looked between Thor and Loki, uncertain of what they exchanged.

“And so?” he prompted, when the quiet went on too long.

Loki returned to the window.

“And so,” he said coldly, “you would be better off with real weapons. Besides that...” Loki brushed a hand back through his dark hair, sweeping it from his shoulder. “Wouldn’t you rather have a story to brag about after?”

“Stories come easily enough,” Fandral murmured.

“Come morning,” said Thor, somewhat diverting the subject, “Loki will show us to a place where several artifacts sleep. And where treasure lies that will be ours for the taking. He has told me everything about it.”

“A trick,” mumbled Hogun.

“Perhaps,” said Loki airily. “But as I will be accompanying you, if it proves to be so, you will not find me too far away to throttle.”

Thor clapped Hogun on the back.

“Do not be so grim, my friends! I promise you, these rewards will be ours, and only the beginning of our adventures!”

“Let a trap come, if it will!” said Volstagg, lifting a full stein into the air. “We will face anything Jotunheim has to offer, and have!”

“Well spoken!” Thor joined him, grabbing up a cup of his own. “Like a true warrior! And we’ll return with a story to tell the Allfather himself!”

Fandral sighed, long-suffering, but unable to help the tug of a smile that pulled at his mouth.

He reached for a drink.

“Well, if you two insist upon going,” he smirked, “then someone should come along to make certain you get the job done properly.”

Hogun added his cup to the toast, and the four of them cheered, clacking steins and cups and drinking deep to the success of whatever lay still before them.

Loki, standing at the window, said nothing.

*****

The lot of them slept deeply after the meal.

The room was small, and had initially been equipped with only three beds. Another demonstration of Loki’s ability formed them into five much more comfortable ones, capable of sustaining even Volstagg’s great weight.

Thor did not know if it was a dream or the supposed bond between them that caused him to wake when Loki slipped from his bed, crossing the planked wooden floor on barely-there steps.

Thor turned his head, watching him.

He was still barefoot. Even after traversing the icy wastes and making it to the tavern, Loki had not clothed himself in anything better than the bracers he wore and the furskin wrap at his waist.

Thor did not know why he took note.

He did look very thin.

The others slept: Volstagg sprawled snoring on his back; Fandral with his pillow clutched like another body, murmuring sweet nothings to it; Hogun sitting up with his back to the wall, weapon in hand. None of them stirred as Loki dragged a blanket from his bed and made for the door.

“Running away already?” said Thor, just loud enough to be heard.

Loud enough to freeze Loki in place.

Loki did not turn to face him. Nor did the tension in his posture fade even as he lowered his arm, let the blanket tips brush the floor.

“I could not run away,” he answered on a whisper. “Even should I try.”

Thor pushed himself up in his bed, weight propped on his arms.

“What, then?”

Loki turned enough that Thor saw his profile: a sharp outline highlighted in what faded in through the window.

“I can’t sleep,” he murmured.

Thor frowned. He looked to the rumpled state of Loki’s bed, tossed and turned.

“Is it not to your liking?” he asked, curious.

Loki’s eyes remained on the floor.

He gripped the blanket briefly tighter in one hand. Clenching it.

“I’ve...grown accustomed to hard cave ground, it seems.” He shook out the blanket and folded it in half, then knelt to spread it on the floor.

Thor watched him. Watched the way his back bent in the light.

“Not to worry,” he said, with a tone meant to reassure. “Soon we’ll be sleeping inside the walls of Asgard’s palace. The beds there have no equal.”

“Nor do the floors,” Loki mused, smiling tightly. “I’m sure.”

He lay down on the blanket once it was smooth, then curled himself small, head pillowed on his arm.

Thor frowned.

“Don’t you want a blanket?”

“I’m not cold,” said Loki.

“Then at least take a pillow—”

“You did not tell them.” Loki came to rest facing him. His eyes flickering in the dark halted Thor where he had begun to climb out of bed, ready to fetch a pillow and extra blanket for Loki, if he would not himself.

Thor stilled, one foot on the floor.

“Tell them what?”

“About our bond.”

Thor fell quiet. He looked down to his hand, then towards the window.

Loki noted the flinch.

“You told them we had only an agreement.”

Another pause, in which Thor did not speak.

“Why?” Loki pressed.

“It did not seem relevant,” Thor mumbled, pulling himself back into bed. He sat cross-legged, his eyes having adjusted to the dark by then. He could see – and feel – Loki’s gaze upon him. “There was already so much to explain...”

“You did not wish them to know you were bound to a frost giant?”

“Are we bound?” Thor countered, and risked looking at him. “I do not feel any different.”

“No,” said Loki softly. “Of course you would not.”

He rolled over, putting his back to Thor. His hair was like a spill of ink across the white blanket.

Thor frowned again.

He drew the breath to speak, though he knew not entirely what he planned to say. The formation of Loki’s name rose in his throat.

“Tell me of the war,” Loki interrupted.

Thor shut his mouth.

“What...would you know?” he ventured, quietly. The others still slept.

“It was Asgard who proved the victor?”

“Yes.”

“What became of Jotunheim?”

Thor took a breath. He had not fought in the war himself. He’d been far too young even for conscription into Asgard’s army by the time it ended.

But the Warriors Three had.

He supposed if Loki had truly been bound to that cave before the war’s end, he would not have known the outcome.

“Jotunheim was...” Thor began carefully, suddenly overly aware of what he might have heard being only stories that made their rounds, or propaganda by those less honorable. “...treated fairly, after they were defeated. The war was long, and stretched armies and soldiers thin. The Jotun King knew he had been slowly losing. In his last desperate attack, he forced his army right up to Asgard’s gates.”

“What happened?” Loki whispered.

“Odin emerged from the citadel to meet him.” Thor’s voice took on a wistful tone. He looked to the window, able to perfectly imagine it against the illuminated landscape. “Everyone who was there still speaks of it. He met the Jotun King face to face on the field, and challenged him to single combat.”

Loki was quiet.

“The better to spare bloodshed on both sides.” Thor chuckled a little. “Though most think the Jotun King agreed only because he wanted the assurance of killing Odin himself.”

“But he failed.”

“Yes. The battle was great, and long. Odin lost his eye. But, in the end...” Thor nodded. “The Jotun fell.”

“Did Odin kill him?”

“What?” Thor blinked down at him, startled he would ask.

And so coldly.

“No,” Thor went on. “Odin would never kill an enemy already defeated. He exiled the Jotun King and his army back to Jotunheim. For their crime against the Realms, they may not leave here, on pain of death. He also emptied their vaults and took their relics from them, that they could never rise up again.”

“Is that why your companions do not trust me?”

“Somewhat,” Thor admitted.

For a moment, Loki was quiet. Then he shifted on his blanket.

“Pity,” he said, with that same coldness. “Odin would have done better to kill them all.”

Thor winced.

“You truly hate your own kind so much?” he whispered.

“They’re not my kind.” Loki’s hand clenched into the blanket. Thor could see it, the raised markings along his wrist and forearm briefly more prominent. “But I do hate them.”

Thor sought without success something to say. He would not defend the frost giants and what they had done. He could remember a hundred times or more joining in on a song in a crowded tavern where the frost giants were mocked. Belittled. Reduced to the status of caricatured monsters meant to frighten children into bed. He had laughed and toasted to their defeat then.

But, just now, condemning them before the sense of Loki’s hate, felt...

It felt wrong.

Perhaps this was what Loki meant by their bond. Thor could practically taste the rage in his mouth.

He did not like it.

“You should try to sleep,” he said, long giving up on the idea of trying to offer comfort. However he could. “You promised an eventful journey tomorrow.”

“Yes, I did,” Loki hummed. Gone was his previous coldness. Now he sounded only amused. “Goodnight, master.”

Thor made a face.

“You do not have to call me that.”

“But you are.”

“That may be, but I would rather you didn’t.”

“What would you prefer, then?”

“I have a name.”

Loki made a sound. It was rather like a chuckle. But he said nothing more, burying his face deeper into the crook of one arm to signal his sleep.

Thor blew out a breath. He pushed sleep-messed hair back from his face and gave the Jotun and his turned back one more look.

It did not feel right, either, to leave him there on the floor with no covering.

Thor rose. He picked up his cloak from the foot of his bed, and crossed the floor in barely two steps. There he knelt, draping it over Loki’s side and shoulder.

If Loki truly didn’t want it, he could throw it off.

Satisfied with that, Thor returned to his bed.

He would need his sleep as well for what was to come.

He glanced over his shoulder only once before finding sleep again. He looked down to the floor, and felt a contentment to see that his cloak was still there.


	3. Chapter 3

They set out the next morning at dawn.

It seemed to make little true difference to rise early. It was moderately more bright outside the tavern, but grey clouds still clotted the sky, low and bloated with the promise of more snow.

But Thor insisted.

Fandral kissed the hand of the innkeeper’s wife where they stood in the doorway, saying their mawkish goodbyes.

“Promise me you’ll return,” she all but wept. “Promise me?”

“As soon as I am able, my dearest.” Fandral drew her close for a kiss and whispered something in her ear that made her flutter, before he bowed low and turned away, tossing his cloak behind him.

He joined Thor and the others, waiting near what passed for a main road in the borderland wastes.

Thor did not approve.

“You should not make promises you have no intention of keeping,” he said, pointedly.

“You truly think me such a scoundrel?” Fandral feigned offense. “I have every intention of keeping my promises. But with adventuring and great power and what not, who knows when the demands of being an Einherjar will allow me to return?”

Thor glanced away, saying nothing.

“I’m sure we’ll be back this way someday,” Volstagg offered.

“Oh, not to worry.” Fandral adjusted his hood, and turned with his comrades as they pulled their cloaks tightly about them. “In a fortnight or so she’ll be entertaining herself with some other traveler. She’ll scarcely remember me.”

“Hrnn,” said Hogun.

They set out inland on foot, away from the coast, following the main road until what little traffic the outpost tavern generated faded away before forces of cold and snow.

Not a terribly well-traveled road to begin with, it was not long at all before they found themselves alone, and unwatched.

No one unfortunate enough to have found themselves at a borderlands outpost would have given much care as to what business five Asgardians had going into Jotunheim.

No one seemed to notice them much at all, for that matter.

Loki led the way, first upon the road, then veering off into white-blanketed wilderness. The others fell into line behind him.

Travel became much easier once they found they could walk upon the snow without sinking.

“Your doing, I suppose?” Fandral looked ahead to Loki, who did not answer. Loki alone pulled the hood of his cloak down once they were away from the tavern, keeping his attention forward, alert.

Fandral pulled the fur lining of his cloak in tighter around him. He suppressed the urge to shiver, and glanced aside to Thor.

“Would it be too much to ask him to do something about the cold as well?”

“We should all be conserving our energy,” said Thor, with a grim bow of his head. “We don’t know what lies ahead of us.”

“Indeed, we don’t.” Fandral lowered his voice, and eased closer to him so Thor could hear. “I still say this whole plan is ripe for Jotun treachery.”

Thor kept his eyes ahead. Several times as they walked his hand fell to his side, as though searching unconsciously for the reassuring grip of his sword. Each time his hand came away empty, reminded it had been broken.

“What exactly did he tell you about this place we’re going?” Fandral pressed.

“That it would suit our purposes for returning to Asgard,” said Thor. “That it was a place ripe with treasure for the taking.”

“I don’t suppose he mentioned what sort of guard would be placed around such valuables?”

Thor felt one side of his face cringe. He did not want to admit he had not precisely asked.

“Whatever trials we may meet,” he said stubbornly, “we will face them, and triumph.” And he tossed Fandral a grin. “As we always have.”

Fandral remained reluctant to be convinced.

“The sort of faith you show in this frost giant makes me question your sanity, Thor.”

“We can trust him. I know we can.”

Thor did not acknowledge the look Fandral gave him, or his dubiously raised eyebrow. Instead he looked again towards his belt, and the empty place where a sword should have been.

“I do wish I had my sword,” he mumbled. “I feel bare without it.”

A moment.

Then Fandral couldn’t resist.

“Bare? Well, that would be quite a sight.” He smirked. “Though in this cold, perhaps it wouldn’t.”

Thor glared.

They walked on for the better part of a day. The weather, fair at first – little more than a light snow – grew steadily more and more severe the deeper into the realm they went.

That as much was to be expected, though Thor developed and clung to the belief that the sharp winds and driving snow that soon buffeted them as they climbed into high mountain trails and wandered through passes among the peaks were not as strong or cold as they could have been. Indeed, they should all have frozen long ago.

Loki walked on ahead as though untouched.

Grey sky darkened to black. Landscape and clouds alike lost their glow. As they descended into yet another valley, the wind grew to such sudden gale force Thor did not know how they kept their feet. Driving snow bit and froze instantly on their boots and cloaks. Squinting through the blinding white-dark, Thor had to lift an arm to shield his eyes.

“Loki!” he called, his voice all but torn away.

He could barely see him up ahead: a dark outline in the midst of a darker storm.

He saw enough to know Loki stopped, and turned, looking back to them.

He scarcely flinched.

“We’re almost there,” he said, with no effort at all. Yet somehow Thor heard him.

“Thor!” Fandral called out, crouched half behind Volstagg for use as a shield. “We should go back!”

“No!” Thor ducked his head and strove onward, biting his teeth and bracing himself against the storm. Each new gust of wind tugged at his cloak and clothes. Tried to drag him backwards, up the mountainside.

“ _Thor!_ ”

“We’ve come this far!”

He would not be dissuaded. Not when they were this close. He could feel it.

Or, perhaps, Loki could feel it.

He pressed on, ready to crawl on his hands and knees if that was necessary, following still that barely-there impression of Loki up ahead in the dark.

Calling.

Beckoning him.

Then, all at once, the storm broke.

Thor fell forward, as the wind suddenly offering its endlessly thick resistance vanished. He landed face first in the snow with what he was sure was a very undignified grunt.

He lifted his head, shook it free of icy powder, and squinted as he looked up into bright sunlight.

Quickly exclipsed as Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun did much the same thing, landing nearly on top of him.

“Nnf!”

“What!” Volstagg started, once he found himself on the ground. “What’s this?”

The sky was clear. They stood in a sheltered valley, the air still and sun so bright it made the snow coating every feature of landscape nearly painful to look upon.

Thor grunted and wriggled until Volstagg rolled off of him, then pushed himself up, patting packed snow and ice from his clothes.

The wind had stopped, but it was bitterly cold.

“What was that?” He looked behind them, to the sheer wall of swirling black snow, ice, and fog that was the storm they had just pushed through.

“That was the wind barrier,” said Loki, standing at the cliff’s edge upon which they had emerged. “Congratulations. Only a few have ever made it through. And that.” He gestured down to the valley below them. “Is our destination.”

A castle. No, more than a castle. A glacial palace, spread upon the valley floor with walls and columns built up to the sides of surrounding mountains. Beneath the sun it shone the most radiant blue.

Thor leaned over the edge to look, his visible breath on the air for a moment stilled. The sheer size of it rivaled the citadel in Asgard.

“I never knew such a place existed in Jotunheim,” he breathed.

“Not many do,” mumbled Loki.

“It looks abandoned.” Volstagg and the others joined them, scanning the sight in a mix of awe and trepidation.

Loki nodded.

“Save by one.”

“Only one?” Revitalized by hope, renewed by purpose, Thor was quick to find his smile again. He looked to Loki, then hurried past him, eager to pick out the path that would lead them downward. “Then we have nothing to fear! Come on!”

The others were quick to follow. This time, Loki lingered, bringing up the rear of their trail.

One, he thought, was quite enough.

*****

Thor half climbed, half slid down the steep path leading from cliff to valley floor. His boots at last hit the bottom with the fragile snap of one walking upon ice, but the hard-packed layer crusting over drifts and drifts of snow held.

His eyes lifted with a wonder for all that was about him.

The ice palace was immense. Columns carved as intricate as tapestries rose in symmetrical formations around what must have been a courtyard. There was no greenery. No stone. All was made of ice, gleaming bright and waveringly transparent in the sun as they passed.

There were massive archways in the place of doors. Curved benches where one could sit beside fountains long since frozen. The water they spouted was only more ice, solidified into arcs through the air, complete with intricate patterns of droplets.

The benches were large, scaled for a much bigger occupant than as Asgardian. Thor would have to jump and reach upward just to grip the seat’s edge.

It was so quiet.

Thor smiled. In the broad light of day, it was a beautiful place. Not the dark, desolate waste of Jotunheim and its crumbling black formations that he knew. Here, it was difficult to believe there was any danger to be had.

“Exquisite,” said Volstagg, sampling a handful of snow.

“Jotuns lived here?” Thor looked aside to Loki. He walked apart from them, his steps not making the sound of faint crunching as the rest of them did upon the snow.

But Thor could see a similar awe in his expression the instant before it vanished. Perhaps a wistful nostalgia for the place.

“Before the war,” he said, very quietly.

“Why are they not still here?” It seemed to Thor this place was a grand improvement from the ruined palaces the fallen Jotun royalty called home.

“It’s location has been lost to them the same as it has to Asgard.” Loki gestured ahead of them, towards an imposing doorway. “In there.”

Thor started for it.

“We’re close,” he grinned.

Loki’s voice took on a warning.

“You should stay here.”

“What’s the matter?” Volstagg shouldered his axe as he followed Thor’s example. “Want all the treasure for yourself?”

Loki’s face remained a hard line as they brushed by him.

Inside, the palace was darker. The ice forming the walls and ceiling layered so thick the sunlight could not quite penetrate. Thor saw his breath again on the air as he smiled, casting his eyes across a wide open hall.

The ceiling was a field of icicles.

Even what passed for furniture had been formed out of ice.

Slanted piles of snow lay gathered in corners and along the walls and pillars, blown in from outside. Frost giants, it seemed, did not believe in doors.

Of course they didn’t, Thor thought, and fancied himself clever for having deduced it. They have no reason to fear the cold.

But as massive as the hall was, it was also empty. There was nothing inside, save endless stretches of white and darker blue.

“Well?” said Fandral expectantly, as Loki caught up with them.

He nodded ahead.

At the far side of the hall – all of Asgard’s arena could fit inside it – was another tall formation of ice. It all but touched the ceiling. Thor thought it only another intricate sculpture until Loki started for it, and he looked again.

There was something...inside.

Loki moved to the very foot of the small frozen mountain, put a hand on his hip, and looked around.

“How far you have fallen,” he said, seemingly to no one.

Thor and the others stared after him.

Then he said: “Skrymir.”

Upon speaking the name, a shudder rumbled through the floor of the chamber. Ice cracked and Thor threw himself aside to avoid being crushed under a massive icicle that fell from the ceiling.

Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg gathered near, drawing their weapons.

Thor picked himself up, and watched, his eyes following a dark crack as it formed through the floor, spreading wider and shattering ice jagged in every direction. Loki neatly stepped out of its way as the crack snaked up the side of the frozen mound.

A dark shape moved within. Flexed. Writhed.

Ice broke and great chunks rained down into the hall, shattering like glass where they fell.

A massive frost giant stood from his throne. He roared with the effort of breaking free, forcing long-frozen limbs to crack and move once again. Ice shards sprinkled from his robes so fine they glimmered like a spark of the Bifrost.

Thor stood close to his friends, fists clenched and ready.

The giant’s eyes were red, and blazed with life newly awakened as he sagged back into his seat. A long, wheezing sigh escaped his dark lips, like the slow scrape of a sliding glacier.

“Loki,” he breathed, long and low once he caught his breath. His eyes settled on the miniscule figure before him, who stood confidently, paying little heed to the Asgardians crouched further back in the chamber.

Loki stood with his chin tilted. He raised one arm, and bowed.

“It is good to see you too, my lord,” he said, his voice loud enough to carry the room’s length. “I trust I’m not interrupting?”

“What are you...doing here?” The giant wheezed, as though drawing breath was an effort.

“You are surprised to see me?” Loki turned. He walked a slow path, precariously peeking over the rift that had formed in the crack along the great hall’s floor. “I’m hurt. Surely you do not think so little of me as to believe I would go anywhere else upon gaining my freedom.”

“How did you...escape?”

“That is a long story, my lord. First tell me how you are.” Loki glanced around the empty hall. “Productive, I see.”

For a moment, the giant didn’t answer. He turned his head enough to set his sights upon Thor and the others.

There was no change in his expression as they locked eyes, but for a moment, Thor felt the coldest of chills sweep through his blood. Beyond his bones and all the way into his heart.

“What is he doing?” Fandral whispered.

Thor could not think of an answer.

He watched.

Waited.

“Is this really what you’ve come to?” Loki continued to speak, walking his slow half-circle in front of the throne. He picked his way across piles of broken ice. Sent a chunk of it tumbling over the rift with a nudge of his foot. “You, strongest and most clever in all Jotunheim? Living alone? Locking yourself away in solitude? What I remember of this hall is being packed full of attendants waiting upon your every word. I remember rulers from all ends of the realm traveling here just for a hint of your knowledge.”

“What you remember,” wheezed the giant, leaning heavily on the arm of his chair, “is a shadow of more glorious days. The war was not...kind...to any of us.” His hand clenched over the carved armrest. Frost formed upon it. A white puff of tiny spikes. “But do not let my crippled appearance fool you, young one. I am not as weak as I appear.”

“Is that so?” Loki breathed, easing his shoulders. “I am glad. I would hate to think I came all the way back here dragging these underripe Asgardians in my wake to find you robbed of all your power.”

“Excuse you!” Volstagg took offense.

“I am as potent as ever,” growled the giant.

Loki smiled.

“Good.”

And waved a hand back towards them.

“Will you eat them right away, then? Or would you prefer to play with them first?”

“What?” Thor snapped.

Loki took no notice. He continued speaking to the frost giant.

“I brought them here. It must have been some time since you’ve had a decent meal. Perhaps they will help you regain your strength?”

Thor snarled a curse and lurched forward, intent on strangling Loki with his bare hands. Magic or no.

The others grabbed his shoulders to hold him back.

“I need no meal,” rumbled the giant. He stood from his chair, cracking more ice from his shoulders as he rotated them. More of it flecked from his skin as he turned his head towards Loki. “Why bring me such a gift? After I locked you in that place?”

Loki bowed his head, and touched a hand over his heart.

“I’ve had a great time to think over matters while I was locked in that cave,” he said. His voice dipped with the weight of sincerity. “In fact, I did nothing else. I realize now the mistakes I made. I was wrong. Please...” There his eyes lifted, imploring up to Skrymir. “My lord. Accept these Asgardians as my first in a long line of apologies.”

The giant looked at him, very weary. Then he smiled.

Thor roared and broke free from the others’ hold.

“You lied!” he shouted. “Everything! Every word! It was all a lie!”

Loki shrugged.

“Loki—!”

Skrymir lifted one hand, and sent a blast of icy spikes hurtling through the air.

The Warriors Three tackled Thor out of the way as he mindlessly rushed forward, narrowly missing the blast. It struck the wall and column behind them.

The column collapsed, chipping their skin and armor with a shatter of frozen splinters.

Another wave of Skrymir’s hand, and a dozen humanoid figures broke free from iced encasings along the walls of the chamber. Nearly as tall as the giant, they started forward, each step squealing with the groan of ice against ice.

“Thor!” Fandral shouted when he started up again. He threw a glance back towards the entry way. There was still a clear path. “We must go!”

Thor wasn’t listening.

He charged forward, leaping first over the swinging ice-fist of one of the giant’s soldiers and dodging another. A third one formed its hand into a spike and drove it elbow-deep into the ice just at Thor’s passing.

Thor dropped to his knees and slid around it before tumbling to regain his feet. Had he taken the time to notice, he would have seen one of the soldiers mindlessly smash into another in an attempt to get to him.

Thor had but one thought in his mind.

If he died, he would die in battle, and it would be with his hands around that traitor’s scrawny neck.

“I suppose we should stay and help him,” said Volstagg, gripping his axe in both hands.

Fandral rolled his eyes. Hogun said nothing, watching as the ice soldiers closed in.

There was no question, really.

“For Asgard!” Volstagg bellowed, and let his axe swing.

Loki stood near the foot of the throne, laughing as he clapped his hands delightedly.

“Yes! Oh yes, my lord! It’s so good to see you work again!”

“This is nothing,” Skrymir chuckled.

Another twist of his hand, and the icicles upon the ceiling began to fall.

Thor dodged. Ducked. Sometimes he fell. He snatched up a shard of ice in one hand for use as a weapon and set his glare on Loki, closing the last stretch of space between them in a mad hurtle.

Loki met his eyes. His smile vanished as he stood his ground, letting him come.

Thor roared, lunged, his hand outstretched to grab hold of Loki’s throat...

...and fell right through him.

Loki’s image flickered only a little as Thor stumbled to catch himself, reel in the momentum of his charge. Ice coating the floor and chunks of it in his way did nothing to help. He wound up on his hands and knees, lifting his head in bewilderment.

Loki shook his head, a little sadly, and tsked.

“Peasant,” he whispered, and the illusion vanished.

Thor saw him reappear some distance away, beside a pillar.

He roared and charged again.

Loki did not disappear this time, but danced neatly out of the way. Around the pillar, skipping skillfully backwards, he may as well have been smoke on a windy day for all Thor could hit him.

Not that he ceased in trying.

At last, just when Thor thought he caught him in a feint, Loki disappeared again.

He reappeared just behind him, and shoved with both hands, sending him tipping over the edge of the floor’s rift.

Thor felt himself fall.

“Thor!” Volstagg shouted, burying his axe into the knee of an ice warrior. A smash of Hogun’s mace shattered the joint.

Thor caught himself on the ledge with one hand. He kicked out, attempting to plant his boots on the wall for the leverage to pull himself up, but the ice was slick.

Loki knelt over him, one arched brow imperious and cold.

Thor glared a look that could murder in return.

Loki reached down, and closed one hand around Thor’s wrist. Ice formed from the air and closed around him, holding him in place, no matter how Thor struggled to break free.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Loki purred.

Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun strove to fight their way to him. Volstagg swept great arcs before them clear with his axe. Hogun’s mace smashed heads and knee joints alike. Fandral’s sword, not as effective against beings made of pure ice, nevertheless clipped and bit, snakelike in the speed of his strikes. He danced and maneuvered around the ice warriors, offering himself as a target and distraction for the other two to flank.

“Thor!” Volstagg shouted again, somewhat needlessly. “Hang on!”

Thor growled and tried once more to push against the rift’s icy wall to free himself. Glancing over his shoulder, he could not see how deep the rift went. It disappeared into black before long. Nor could he hear any tinkle of ice against the bottom as it dropped from his hand.

Skrymir moved to stand over Loki’s shoulder, looking down at him.

“This one is special,” he rumbled, and looked to Loki.

Loki did not look back. He shrugged one shoulder, careless.

“He has his uses.”

“Would you like to kill him yourself?”

“And deny you the pleasure?” Loki smiled sweetly up to the giant. “I would not dream of it, my lord.”

Skrymir smiled, and it was cold.

 _As are all frost giant smiles_ , Thor thought, seething.

Loki formed a spear of ice into his hands. He held it out in offering to the giant, though it was sized for himself.

“He is all yours,” he said.

Thor stared as he the giant’s size change. He shrank, lowering himself to a size more befitting the offered spear. He took it from Loki’s hands and poised himself at the edge of the rift, lining up his aim to stab.

Thor braced himself, lifting his face high.

“I have wanted to do this for quite some time,” Skrymir wheezed, meeting Thor’s defiant eyes. “This is for what you did to Jotunheim. Someday, all of Asgard will—”

He stopped, choking on his words, as a long dagger sprouted from his throat.

Standing close behind him, Loki nuzzled into the crook of Skrymir’s neck. Affectionately so, were it not for the way he bared his teeth and whispered with such savagery:

“And this is for locking me in that cave, you worn out relic.”

Thor stared, unable to do anything but watch as Loki reached his free hand around the front of Skrymir’s chest. Fingertips dug into exposed Jotun skin, and began to glow.

“I did indeed have a great time to think over matters,” he hissed, a deep green light beneath his hand growing brighter. “And to practice. I thought of nothing else but you. And this place. And what you did to me.”

His hand clenched, the markings standing upon it.

“I have wanted to do this for quite some time.”

There came the sound of splintering ribs, and ice, and it was with a sickening snap that Skrymir’s body contorted. It bent back to an impossible angle, the once-giant’s mouth opening in a soundless shriek. Loki ripped the dagger from his throat, slicing as long and brutal as it had been shoved in.

Then Skrymir dropped, a lifeless lump quickly overtaken by frost.

Thor stared.

His wide eyes fixed upon Loki, and how he smiled. Silent, but with the impending threat of a wave about to crash over a ship.

In his hand was what looked like a frozen Jotun heart, which he promptly crushed.

Thor felt his own still in his chest.

The ice soldiers halted their mindless movements. Then they too collapsed, falling into heavy broken chunks that slid wet across the floor.

Quiet overtook the room as the Warriors Three looked around them. To each other. To their fallen opponents. Then to the rift.

“Thor!”

Loki knelt, and broke the ice holding Thor by his hand. He took hold and hauled him up over the rift’s edge, back onto solid ground.

“Loki,” Thor breathed. He lifted one hand, wiping a trickle of blood from his brow where he had been caught by a glancing blow.

Then he grabbed Loki’s shoulders and slammed him against the nearest pillar, held up beyond the reach of his feet.

“I will kill you!” he roared, echoing throughout the room.

Fandral’s sword quickly darted in to lay across Loki’s throat.

“He nearly killed us all,” he scowled.

“But I didn’t,” said Loki, quite calmly. He looked at no other than Thor. “Skrymir needed to be distracted. I could not slay him at full size.”

Thor met his eyes. For all his rage and senses still reeling from the would-be betrayal, he could not quite make sense of what he saw there.

A blankness. A resigned acceptance for whatever Thor meant to do with him next. So far removed from the scarlet bloodthirst he had seen only a moment ago.

It had been terrifying to behold.

Terrifying, and...something else.

Thor slammed him against the pillar once more. The thought of that look chilled him, even as it stirred his wrath and inspired.

He had planned it. He had planned it all this way from the beginning.

Thor did not know whether to cling to his rage or relent to a grudging admiration.

He felt his friends around him. Knew by their tension what they meant to do.

For a long while, he didn’t move. Only searched Loki’s eyes.

Loki remained as he was. Quiet. Calm. And without apology.

“Thor?” Fandral nudged, looking to him, as did the others.

Thor let out the breath he had not realized he’d been holding.

He slammed Loki once more against the pillar, for completion’s sake, and reluctantly let him go.

“We are alive,” he said, though it tasted sour in his mouth to admit it. “And the Jotun is dead. If that is truly the only danger this place houses—”

“It is,” said Loki.

Thor shot him a glare.

“You could have told us you meant to use us as bait,” he grumbled.

“Then you would not have reacted convincingly.” Loki swept messed hair back over his shoulder. “Skrymir had to believe. So you had to believe.”

The others did not lower their weapons.

Thor looked between them and Loki. He cast his gaze back towards the Jotun lying dead near the rift, now decomposed into nothing more than a smear of frost and lichens. Thor knew the exceptionally older frost giants to die in such a way.

“You truly did not mean to kill us?” he mumbled.

Loki’s voice came quietly.

“I could never harm you.”

Thor sighed.

His friends looked on, disapproving, but he turned away. He tossed one hand dismissively.

“Show us to the supposed treasure,” he said. “Then we will see what’s to be done with you.”

“You’ve been hurt.” Loki reached after him, towards the wound in Thor’s hair. “Let me...”

Thor smacked his hand away without regard.

“Treasure,” he repeated, and firmly.

He did not enjoy being called a peasant.


	4. Chapter 4

“Odin’s beard,” Volstagg breathed.

Thor could not believe his eyes.

An entire hall, equally as large as the one they had just left, filled as though flooded with gold coins, armor, weapons, trinkets, and jewels.

A dragon could not have possessed such a horde.

“This is real?” Thor looked to Loki, who only shrugged, and moved forward to step first into the chamber.

He knelt. He reached a slim hand into a pile of coins strewn haphazardly upon the floor. Lifting it away, gold dropped between his fingers as though water lifted from a pond. Rich, tiny sounds sang with each strike upon the floor. He turned his hand and let it all drop at once, save one coin, which he tossed to Thor.

Thor caught it, struck first by the cold that had sunk into the metal.

He looked down to the coin and turned it in his palm. It felt real enough. Heavy. He did not recognize the markings upon it.

He bit it between his teeth.

“Tastes real,” he murmured.

“I should say so!” Volstagg barrelled forward, sinking his hands into another mound of treasure only to fling it high into the air, laughing as it rained down upon the sea of gold and jewels.

He looked back to the others, as giddy as a boy.

Smiles broke out among them, and Thor exchanged only a look with Fandral and Hogun before they joined him. They rushed in, laughing, quick to search the piles to see what they could find.

They tried on crowns. They draped themselves in jeweled amulets and pulled weapons from the piles worth more than the whole armory of Asgard. Volstagg found a harp with strings made of finely spun gold, which played the most beautiful chord of notes when he drew his hand across it (even more remarkable, for Volstagg had not a speck of musical talent in him).

Fandral found a mirror, its surface carved with depictions of the sea. Coiling waves wove around inlaid pearls and blue-green emeralds, swirling in white and untarnished gold.

“A fitting frame for a face such as mine, I think,” he preened.

Thor sought a sword. There was no lack of them. Hilts and grips of all styles stuck out at odd angles among the mounds. Hardly proper care for weapons, but the swords seemed unharmed for it as he pulled them free one by one to examine.

They were beautiful, all of them. Worthy to hang in the hall of a king. Many of them were of a craft he had never seen before. But for all their gold and gleam and jeweled hilts, they did not seem fit for use in practical combat. One was too large for his hand. Another too small. This one was too heavy. That one too bright.

If they were magic, Thor could not tell.

He found one more to his liking, and turned, seeking Loki among the gleam.

Loki picked his way across the horde of treasure as well, though his going was more careful. His steps more considerate of where he trod.

Thor swung the sword experimentally, and gestured.

“What does a Jotun need with so much treasure?” he asked.

“Frost giants are not above greed or vanity,” answered Loki. “Skrymir was a great man in his time. Most of this was tribute brought from across the realm.”

“Why? What did he have to offer?”

“Knowledge.” Loki reached down, sifting a mound of coins aside, to reveal something covered in rich purple cloth. He dug it from the depths of gold and cradled it close to his chest. “And magic.”

Thor watched him, with growing sobriety.

“He was the one who taught you?” he said, more quietly.

Loki looked to him and smiled.

“Oh yes.”

He stepped neatly down from his perch and set the item aside, along with a growing pile he had collected on the floor.

Thor gave the sword another swing, then posed with it positioned in both hands over his head. He planted one foot upon a chest for extra dynamic.

“What do you think of this?” he grinned.

“Impressive. If you’re posing for a portrait.”

Thor frowned. He lowered the sword to look over it again, it’s relative lack of ornamentation compared to the other weapons in this place.

“Then what would you suggest?” he challenged.

Loki chuckled at something, and gestured for Thor to come down.

“I would suggest you let me see to that wound. Though as it is on your head, it’s understandable if you can’t feel it.”

Thor came down, though it was to sulk. He lowered the sword and took it with him as his boots found bare floor again.

“Are you allowed to insult me? What with our...” He glanced towards the others still exploring the riches. “...agreement?”

“I just did.” Loki beckoned him to sit. “If you do not wish me to, you could make it an order.”

“No,” said Thor, and sat, placing his newfound sword aside. He folded his legs and set his chin upon one hand, turning his eyes aside as Loki saw to his wound. He paid no attention to the sting as Loki cleaned it with melted snow, or the sound of tearing cloth as he made a bandage.

He watched the Warriors Three instead, arguing over how many pendants were acceptable to wear into a battle.

Loki said softly: “They look up to you.”

“What?” Thor glanced to him. He saw a bit of lichen Loki crushed, then spit into his palm. He tried not to think of what the old Jotun – Skrymir – had been reduced to when he died.

Loki dabbed the impromptu paste over the gash on his head.

“You lead them,” he said. Gently. “They look to you for guidance, for orders, though you are younger. Though you have not seen battle as they have.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Thor said. “If your next question is to ask me why, then I’ll tell you I don’t know. That’s...how we are.” His eyes returned to the Three with a fondness, one he could feel tug at his lips. “They’re good men. All of them.”

“They raised you.”

“Since I was a scrapling.”

“You have no real family?”

“I do.” Thor gestured across the hall. “There.”

Thor stole a glance of Loki again. So close, he occupied the whole of the edge of his vision. But he hoped Loki did not notice.

He thought again of the lichens.

“Were you and Skrymir...close?”

There was a brief increase in the sting of Loki’s treatment. Thor braced himself against the urge to wince.

“No,” Loki said.

“Do you have any family?” Thor remembered how long Loki must have been in that cave. “That is, that you know?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Loki eased his tending. He sat back on his heels, wiping his hands clean on his meager dressings.

“It must have been terribly lonely, sealed away for so long.”

“Not especially.”

“You missed no one?”

“There was no one to miss.” Loki smiled, tilting his face coyly. “Not all have a cherished lady at home waiting for them to return.”

Thor blinked a little.

“Lady?”

“Mm. You spoke of her in the cave. While you slept.”

“A-ah...is that so?”

“Oh yes.” Loki paused. “In great detail.”

“I see...”

“Thor!” Fandral’s voice interrupted, and with a welcome relief. “How are we going to get all this back to Asgard?”

“Aye,” said Volstagg. “I can carry a third of it. Fandral and Hogun could possibly get a remaining fifth between them.”

“Perhaps we could hook you up to a cart, you great ox.”

“Come within reach of this arm and speak so, you gilded peacock!”

Thor laughed. He lifted a hand to push back his hair, feeling across the place he’d been wounded.

There seemed not a trace of the gash left.

“Do not worry, my friends,” he said, beaming as he stood. “We have Loki here with us. He will think of something!”

He turned to look at Loki still seated on the floor. Loki returned his gaze, one dark eyebrow delicately arched. Even moreso when Thor offered his hand.

“Then we’re trusting him again?” said Fandral.

Thor smiled. His hand remained open.

“Yes. I think we are.”

Loki took it, and stood.

“I am sorry,” Thor said again. He kept Loki’s wrist held in a warrior’s grip a moment longer once they were level, speaking so only he could hear. “For doubting you.”

Loki looked to their hands, then to him.

“That was the idea,” he murmured, and pulled away. He tucked his hand in close to himself, fingers curled in along his side. Thor imagined it was to cool himself from an Asgardian’s overly warm grip.

“We will not be able to walk a Jotun back into Asgard,” mumbled Hogun.

“He’s right,” said Volstagg. “We’d never get past the border posts.”

“I am not a Jotun,” Loki countered. He cast them all a withering look. “You would do better to cease referring to me as such.”

“Then what are you?” Fandral challenged. “You’re certainly not Asgardian. A troop of border post guards may not be willing to discuss the difference.”

“Fandral,” Thor warned, but Loki said nothing. He only glared, and stood his ground in a moment of silence.

Then he lifted both his hands, and brushed them back over his face. Through his hair. Smoothing thick black waves until his hands came to rest at the nape of his neck. As his touch moved, the blue in his skin melted away. Lines of Jotun heritage smoothed and his eyes shifted from crimson to green.

Thor nearly took a step back, startled at the change.

“Is this more acceptable?” Loki’s voice came clipped and sharp, his words pointed.

Fandral did not speak, but he nodded.

Volstagg and Hogun stared.

Thor frowned.

“What of the cold?” he asked. “Asgard is a much warmer realm, and if it pains you to—”

He stopped when Loki lifted a hand to touch his cheek. Thor stilled, expecting the sharp bite of ice in his fingertips. But his skin was pleasantly Aesir warm. Nor did he flinch from Thor’s heat when he touched his palm in return.

Though his skin was perhaps the only thing that had warmed.

“No one will know,” he said, the same sharpness in his tone. “Not even that fool Heimdall. But you all must do exactly as I instruct.”

Thor took Loki’s hand from his cheek. He held it as he watched him, attentive.

“What shall we do?” asked Volstagg.

Loki looked over the four of them, then to the pile of treasure he had collected on the floor.

“First” he said, “we must get you properly outfitted...”

*****

The sound of sword sang like metallic rain on the sparring grounds. Lady Sif swung, slashed, and blocked her way through the ranks of Einherjar, bringing her shield to bear as often as she did her sword arm. She was smaller than the majority of Asgard’s chosen warriors, more lightly armored, but the speed it afforded her served her well as she rammed her shoulder into the chestplate of an enemy combatant. Her elbow into the face of another.

The sparring ground was just that, meant for training, and as such the swords and weapons used were blunted. Far less lethal even in skilled hands. (Though in Lady Sif’s hands they still left a wake of bruises and bloody noses.)

There were no sides. No alliances save those formed briefly between warriors, either quickly broken or upheld as a matter of honor. It was a surge of battle in every direction.

The winner was the one left standing.

Here, Sif felt most herself.

She crossed swords with a helmeted warrior twice her size, ducked low, and used her leverage to flip him over her back and onto his.

He landed with a grunt, her boot over his throat.

“Next time, Tyr,” she grinned, her face alight with feral glee.

The man on the ground yielded, raising his one good hand.

“Do not gloat,” he said. “There may be a dagger poised just behind you.”

There was. Sif grabbed the would-be assassin’s wrist and threw him. A crack of her sword pommel against his skull made him reconsider rising again.

“That was beneath you,” she grumbled, even as she offered a hand to help Tyr to his feet.

Tyr smiled a little, and nodded.

“Not all enemies on the field will be honorable.”

By then the skirmish was ending. Warriors helped their fallen comrades to their feet, amid a great many boasts and taunts and slapped shoulders. They bowed their heads in deference towards the princess and captain of the guard, who stood virtually untouched.

“Your father wishes to speak with you,” said Tyr.

Sif sheathed her sword with more force than was necessary. She raised her eyes, spotting quickly the dark outline of the king along a balcony overlooking the sparring grounds. As she watched, the imposing form retreated, followed by twin birds made of shadow.

She should have known he’d be watching.

“I imagine he does,” she said thinly. She thanked Tyr, then left.

*****

Sif marched into the throne room unwashed, unchanged, her hair still tangled with the dirt and sweat of the sparring grounds. She held herself tall and met her father with an even gaze, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

“Yes, father?” she prompted once she stood at the foot of his throne.

Odin looked her over with one appraising eye, as he always did, unable to hide the faintest shift of judgement.

“Sif,” he said, grave and formal. “How fare the warriors?”

“Well, father.”

“They are keeping themselves in good conduct?”

“Yes, father.”

“Tyr is overseeing new recruitment?”

“Yes, father.” Sif tilted her head. “Though he prefers I still test the young ranks myself, just to be certain.”

She smiled, keeping her lips pressed tightly together.

Odin’s shoulders deflated as he breathed. He leaned on one arm of his throne, lowering his gaze.

“And, the other matter we’ve discussed?” He lowered his voice.

Sif made no effort to conceal a roll of her eyes.

“I’ve not given it much thought,” she grumbled.

“You would do well to,” said Odin. “It will fall to you to carry on our family’s legacy—”

“Which I can do perfectly well in a manner that does _not_ involve marriage and bearing children.”

Her sharpness caused a silence in the room. Guards who stood along the walls and door held their breath and pretended they didn’t hear. Huninn ruffled his feathers. Muninn’s claws scraped across his perch.

Odin was still.

“What alternative would you suggest?”

“I’ve distinguished myself in battle several times already.” Sif tilted her chin. “I will do so again, until I carve my name into the memory of every warrior of Asgard. Past or future.”

“A bold claim. And in the meanwhile, the throne sits empty.”

“A warrior’s place is on the battlefield.”

“In what war? This is a time of peace. The conflict with Jotunheim has ended.”

“And there will never be another?”

Odin sighed. He looked weary, Sif thought, but she would give him no ground.

They had had this argument many times before.

“I have already entered into negotiations with a noble house of Vanaheim,” Odin said. “An alliance between our two peoples would be of benefit to all.”

When Sif spoke, it was tightly. Through her teeth.

“Yes, father.”

“They will be sending an envoy within the fortnight.”

“Of course, father.”

“We will meet with them and you will present yourself in a manner more befitting your status. Is that understood?”

Sif didn’t answer. She lowered her gaze at last, her jawline taught.

She nodded. Once.

“Good.” Odin waved his hand. Huninn made a croaking caw, to which Sif shot a skewering glare.

“Now go see to your new recruits.”

“Yes, father.”

Sif left. She waited until she was just beyond Odin’s earshot, but not yet out of the sight of the citadel guards, before finding a wall to punch.

*****

“Now I feel like a guilded peacock.”

Fandral tugged at the collar of his cloak where the lot of them huddled in a dark alcove. Beyond the archway shone the bright light of Asgard’s arena, allowing just enough light in to see by.

“Shush,” grumbled Volstagg. “You look a proper rooster.”

“Naturally, but can we fight in this getup? I feel more dressed for riding in a parade.”

Thor said nothing. He stood in the dark with the others, breathing deep in an effort to calm his racing heart. His hand rested on the hammer hanging at his belt. The hum of her power reverberated through his fingertips, reassuring in its presence.

As it had the first time he’d touched her.

“I’ve selected these for you,” Loki had said before they’d left the ice palace. He had gathered Thor and the others to him, and his collected pile of treasure on the floor.

“These will best suit your various talents.”

To Hogun, he handed a spiked mace, whose teeth could contract with a thought, and a gauntlet from which an endless supply of small knives could be drawn.

Hogun took the weapon and gave it a swing, turning it in his wrist. He held it up in the light for a look, then nodded.

“Good weight,” he grunted.

None of them said much, still reeling from Loki’s abrupt change.

Thor strove to look elsewhere, and saw the sword held gently in Loki’s arms.

“Then this must be for me,” he said, overly jovial as he reached for it. Loki had already denounced the one he’d chosen for himself as nonmagical and a brittle excuse for a toothpick.

Loki neatly dodged his hand.

“No.” He hold of the sword himself. “This one requires speed and a graceful touch. Not bumbling brutality.”

He handed it to Fandral.

Thor fumed.

Fandral held up the blade to examine, checking its balance and the state of its edge. It did seem more a rapier-style blade once Thor got a better look at it. More than likely it would break in his hand.

But for a delicate wrist like Fandral...

“Dashing.” Fandral smiled approvingly. He slid the sword and its matching sheath onto his belt.

“You will find it does not easily miss,” Loki nodded.

To Volstagg, he handed a plain metal stein.

Fandral snickered.

“Hardly a weapon.”

Volstagg huffed and brandished it in one fist.

“Shall we test it on your skull then, and see?”

“An endless stein,” Loki smiled gently. “It will never empty of drink. And you will find its flavor changes to suit your mood.”

Volstagg’s eyes grew wide. He held the stein beneath his nose and took a sniff. Then a sip. Then a gulp, which grew into deeper gulps as he tipped the stein higher and higher. Golden mead spilled over the edge and into his beard, far more than the stein should have been able to rightfully hold.

He broke free with a smack of lips and a massive sigh, then held the stein aloft.

“Take heart, warriors!” he bellowed. “The Einherjar may all retire! Spend their days at ease! So long as Volstagg the Valiant remains quenched, he can do the job of a hundred Einherjar!”

Fandral and Hogun cheered.

“And what of me?” Thor asked, more sullenly.

Loki looked to him, one brow arched, as though he’d forgotten.

“For you,” he said, and unwrapped an item he held in soft purple cloth. “This.”

It was a hammer. And not even a big one.

“A hammer,” said Thor, dubiousness dragging his tone to the floor. “Do you expect me to build something?”

“Handle’s too short,” said Hogun.

“Short. Blunt.” Fandral nodded. “I think it’s a fitting match.”

“Do not judge based on appearances,” Loki coaxed, his eyes knowing. He held the hammer grip outward for Thor to take. “I think you will like her.”

“Her?” Thor reached for it, though he remained doubtful. “Do weapons have souls now—?”

His voice trailed away to nothing, his attention so suddenly caught he almost didn’t hear what Loki said next.

“She does. Her name is Mjolnir.”

“Mjolnir...”

_The Thunderer._

The name rang in his mind. Thor held her aloft. She was...light. Much lighter than such a weapon ought to have been, though not so much as to be completely directionless in a swing. With inlaid runes carved into the metallic head, and special care taken in the detailing along its edges and handle, Thor didn’t doubt the weapon was enhanced with some kind of magic.

He didn’t realize how much until he took hold.

It was not just a hum of underlying power. She sang. A song like a building storm far in the distance, with the whistle of growing wind and the patter of warm rain. Power like lightning sparked just beneath her calm surface, waiting to be released.

 _Mjolnir_ , Thor thought, with a growing smile.

He held the hammer by the leather strap at the end of its grip, and gave it a swing.

He was grinning.

“Whosoever holds this hammer controls the lightning and the storms,” Loki said in recitation. He met Thor’s eyes.

Thor could have already guessed.

He swung her a little more.

“My friends,” he said, rapidly growing excitement building in the air. “I think we’re going to give the Einherjar an audition they will never forget.”

The Warriors Three lifted their fists in a cheer. Thor joined them...or meant to, but the sudden halt and lifting of the hammer lurched him up from the ground. He went hurtling through the air – first up, then in an arc – tumbling as he released Mjolnir in a panic and smashed into an icy wall. Snow and dislodged icicles collapsed around him, muffling his grunts.

When the Warriors Three dug him out, Thor was still grinning.

He picked Mjolnir up from the ice once more and admired her.

“This hammer,” he decided. “I like it!”

That had been days ago. Now they were back in Asgard, dressed in the armor and cloaks Loki had selected for them from the treasury, waiting for their signal to enter the arena.

Loki’s disguise had not earned even a second glance from the border post guards when they had crossed out of Jotunheim. Not in suspicion, anyway.

“Who knew a frost giant could become so fetching,” Fandral had commented – several times – over the course of the return journey. Loki walked far enough ahead of them Thor thought he couldn’t hear. Or didn’t care if he did.

“Frost giants are no more attractive or ugly than the faces that fill any tavern in Asgard,” Thor muttered, taking care to keep his voice low anyway

“The short hair serves him better, I think.”

Thor set his jaw. He remembered the sound the knife had made as it had shorn through Loki’s hair, a dark pile of it gathering around him where he knelt.

“One less detail to divide my concentration,” he’d said, when he caught Thor watching. Thor ducked his head, ashamed to stare so, but he still gawked at Loki’s change. Fandral had not been amiss when he said Loki was fetching.

Thor wondered privately if Loki had always been so fair. He’d only not seen it beneath the marks of Jotun heritage. His features as a whole had not changed. Only his race.

Thor frowned. He didn’t like the thought of being so shallow-minded.

“Your attitude towards him has certainly changed,” said Thor, rather than answer directly.

Fandral laughed, and smoothed his moustache.

“Amazing what a pretty face can accomplish,” he hummed. Then he laughed at something private, and nodded his head. “So, that is what it feels like.”

Thor did not respond. He thought instead of Loki checking his hair in a polished shield face, then pausing enough to look at himself – seemingly Asgardian now – for the space of several breaths. Then he reached to the cord of trinkets around his neck and tore it loose, along with the bracers on his arms.

Thor did not know why he winced.

Loki threw both the trinkets and bracers away. They landed somewhere among the golden horde.

He watched Loki’s eyes. How they moved over the treasure now. With longing, he thought.

“Is there anything you would like for yourself?” Thor said, tentative. “You have earned a share more than anyone.”

Loki had smiled at him in a small and pitying way.

“No,” he said, on a light chuckle. “This gold is better used elsewhere.” He looked down at himself again. Touched the fur wrap around his waist. “Though I should find a replacement for these. They simply will not do.”

“Of course.”

“Since you so graciously collapsed my cave before I could collect any of my belongings from it.”

Thor did not know what to say to that.

Now they waited, hands resting on their new weapons, clad in gleaming armor and fine cloaks.

“You’re certain Loki will bring the gold?” Volstagg hummed. “Seemed to me we just left it there.”

“Loki said he would,” Thor nodded. “So he will.”

“If he hasn’t run off by now.”

Thor did not answer. He stared ahead at the archway that led into the arena.

A fanfare sailed over the sound of a cheering crowd. Thor’s heart leaped into his chest.

Odin and Lady Sif must have just arrived.

“It’s time,” he said, and led the way.

“I have to use the toilet,” whispered Volstagg. His new stein had not left his hand since the ice palace.

They collectively ignored him, and stepped together into the light.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (...at some point this stopped being Aladdin and turned into A Knight's Tale...???)

They emerged in the arena.

Bright light stabbed Thor’s eyes, long grown accustomed to the dark. Asgard’s sun radiated against the hard-packed dirt of the arena floor, made the pale stone of the foundations and gold trimmings near painful to look upon. Thor winced and shook his head, blinking his vision back into clarity. Fear flickered within him that their days spent in the dark wastes of Jotunheim had left permanent effects.

They were not alone. Warriors of all manner and arms poured from archways lining the arena’s interior. There were Asgardians, giants, dwarves, elves, and some others Thor could not identify. He did recognize the flying banners of noble houses stretching to all corners of Asgard and beyond: Vanaheim, Alfheim, Muspelheim, to name few.

A continuous roar of cheers and applause from the crowd drowned noise to all sides, as daunting as a tumultuous ocean. It barely left room for thought.

Thor lifted one hand. He shielded his eyes from the midday sun and squinted into the stands, seeking the royal platform among them.

The sun felt warm on his bare arms, chasing away Jotunheim’s last lingering cold.

They sat apart from the crowd, in place as well as in stature: Odin, his queen Frigga, and the Lady Sif. The Allfather did not wear the same gleaming gold armor now as he had when he rode in parade, but he was the image of regal sagacity nonetheless. He sat in a constructed wooden seat, tall, elegant in its simplicity. Thor recognized also Tyr to Odin’s right, standing with as rigid command as he was ever spoken to possess. And to his left...

Lady Sif may as well have been the moon to Asgard’s bright sun. Dark hair pulled back from her face, braided simply and practically. Her eyes moved with a spark of interest as the warriors appeared, her expression otherwise bored.

Thor grinned.

Of course she would have rather been down there testing the men herself. All knew Sif to be a princess of the sword. It showed in the sleeveless dress she wore, the fine musculature of her arms pale against the silver material: a simple cut, but rich. Probably elven weave. She wore pants beneath her skirt, and boots up to her knee.

Thor sighed, long and longing.

Applause and cheers for the warriors ceased as Odin stood from his seat. He beckoned attention to him with a wave of his hand, and addressed so all could hear:

“Citizens of Asgard. Those joining us from realms beyond our borders. I welcome you all to this our place of communal sport. A long-held and honored tradition of this land, where warriors may meet, and test themselves face to face with the greatest, and grandest all peoples have to offer...”

Thor kept his eyes raised, hanging upon every word.

At least until Fandral began to mutter.

“Just remember, stay together,” he said. “There is strength in numbers. We’re less likely to be overrun if we’re together.”

“Hiding behind me does not count,” huffed Volstagg. He shouldered his axe, and took a deep drink of his stein.

“...meet potential allies, and reaffirm bonds of mutual respect...”

“Last man standing is the victor,” Fandral went on. He nodded. “Not to worry, boys. I shall not forget those who have aided and assisted me once I’ve won.”

“Hrnn,” said Hogun.

“We know the rules, Fandral,” grumbled Thor. He lifted his eyes further upward, to the banner flying overhead on the polearm to which it was attached. Hogun held it easily at level with those of other houses: one among the colors of many. Theirs was red, primarily, with the silver likeness of a hammer, it head pointed down, surrounded by golden embroidery and touches of blue, green, and violet.

The hammer design seemed appropriate, all things considered.

Loki had made it.

“...and show not the greatness of one realm over another,” Odin went on, “but the greatness that may be achieved as a whole, united and strong...”

“Are all these here truly allowed the chance to be Einherjar?” Thor whispered aside to Volstagg. “They’re from everywhere...it’s as though—is that a rock giant?”

Volstagg hummed deeply, and nodded his head.

“The war wasn’t a short one, lad,” he said, with an air of sobriety Thor only rarely heard from him. “Alliances were formed. Treaties were made. Hands were shook. Odin didn’t turn away any help he could find. Oh, I’m sure all the best offices are reserved for Asgardians, but still...” He took another drink. “You know that old saying. Even the ugliest dwarf can brew the best beer.”

“I think you made that up.”

Horns blew across the arena. Attention returned to Odin as he finished his speech, and lowered his hand.

“Warriors,” he said, addressing now those in the arena. “Know this: the only tenet of this battleground is that you abide by the rules of war. Your skill alone will serve you, and accept an honorable defeat when it is given. Remember that no matter your birthplace, you are all brothers in arms. Your spirit unites you.”

The horns blew again. Odin waved his hand, and took his seat again to the sound of roaring applause. Warriors in the arena howled and stomped and beat their weapons against their shields, those who did not raise their fists – or claws – in fearsome display.

Thor felt his heart sprint in his chest. The grin on his face could not be contained.

The horns sounded again.

“This is it, lads,” Volstagg said beneath it. He held out his stein between them. “For glory!”

Hogun place his free hand over the rim.

“For honor,” he said.

Fandral added his hand, and grinned.

“For girls!”

Thor laughed, and placed his hand above the rest, sealing them and their bond of friendship together, whatever the forthcoming battle may hold.

“For Asgard.”

The horns fell away with a flourish, and the battle began.

The sea of bodies in the arena heaved a massive tide as each warrior turned and immediately attacked his neighbor, those who did not retreat to the edge to place their backs against a wall. Banners of royal houses dropped or scurried away as fearful squires bolted for safety.

Hogun, being no squire, turned his sideways and used it to topple three Vanir standing conveniently close.

Thor and the Warriors Three adopted a formation, closing in tight that they stood at one another’s back.

“Remember to stay together!” Fandral shouted, somewhat needlessly. He tapped his sword tip against helmets and armor plating as added insult in the wake of each successful strike. Occasionally he would slap a felled opponent on the backside with the flat of the blade. “Stay together! No matter what, stay—”

“Flail!” Volstagg bellowed.

They scattered immediately, throwing themselves in every direction as a massive spiked ball – easily larger than Thor’s head – on the end of a wickedly jagged chain came hurtling through the air. It slammed into the ground, ripping up chunks of rock and dirt.

Thor rolled, came up in a fighting crouch, to level a glare at its weilder.

The rock giant. Easily as tall as a tree. It yanked the flail from the ground and coiled the chain back in around its hand, drawing in for another strike.

Thor pushed hair from his eyes, tossed back his cloak, and drew Mjolnir from his belt.

“Stand your ground, Thor!” Volstagg’s shout reached him over the din. “I’m coming—!”

He promptly went down beneath a tide of swarming gnomes.

Thor grinned. Fandral and Hogun he could not see, lost in the battle all around. He would face the rock giant alone.

Just as he preferred.

“Come at me, beast,” he growled, showing his teeth in a feral smile.

He gave Mjolnir a threatening spin.

The giant snorted, and let fly its chain. Thor felt the rush of air and threatening spikes graze his skin as he charged forward, ducked low, leaped again to swing his new hammer and smash it squarely into the giant’s chin.

The giant...noticed.

Then it backhanded Thor hard enough to send him flying across the length of the arena.

Thor landed hard on a group of armored fighters, his cloak quickly entangling two of them. He kicked to free himself and looked up in time enough to see the flail hurtling after.

A surge to one side. He felt his cloak tear free, the material ripping on the blades of warriors as well as weapons. He left those who broke his fall to take the brunt of the flail’s impact while he rolled away, came up again to catch his bearings.

Just as well. The cloak only got in the way.

The rock giant yanked its flail free from the group, eyes burning as they sought him out.

He smiled, and waved.

The rock giant roared over the heads of those beneath it, and charged.

Thor roared back, half mad with the rush and thrill of battle already making his head light. He reached for Mjolnir at his side again, prepared to meet the giant face to face.

Except Mjolnir was not there.

Thor’s breath caught as he looked to his empty hand, the empty belt loop at his side. He must have dropped her when those warriors broke his fall...

He ducked the next flight of the rock giant’s flail, then scrambled on hands and knees back to the pile of groaning bodies. They were not dead, any of them – sorry warriors they would be if a single blow like that managed to fell them – and in a moment or two most would catch their breath enough to be on their feet again. Until then, Thor climbed over armor and stepped on faces in search of his weapon, calling out her name in near panic.

“Hammer? Hammer! _Mjolnir!_ ”

The flail came at him again. He threw himself aside. Rolled. Felt the reverberation through the ground as the flail struck, dragged back long, jagged grooves in the dirt. Other combatants attacked the rock giant as it was distracted, striking exposed calves and ankles, though bladed weapons did little more than make a chink in such thick, rock-studded hide. Those that managed to bury themselves in crevices and cracks snapped with the giants turning, or left their weilders wishing they had, before they were casually batted aside by a massive granite fist. As easily as one would swat a pestering fly.

Thor found Mjolnir at last, in the hands of another fighter.

Thor growled, grunted, stumbled, and staggered his way across the arena. The fighter with Mjolnir was a slender elf, quick and dextrous. He seemed to find the hammer just as wonderful as Thor had when he’d given her that first swing. Even now she struck light, and swift. The elf carved a path with her through the enemy ranks, leaving a trail of bodies for Thor to trip over as he followed.

Dodging. Punching. Now and then body slamming a slew of attackers from every direction. Thor kept half an eye behind him on the rock giant, wary of its flail.

It felt near impossible to catch that elf.

“You there—!” he tried, and was promptly knocked over.

Thor caught up to him at last, throwing himself into a lunge that caught the back of the elf’s knees and waist. They went down. The elf turned with the fall, landed easily, and kicked him with a rabbit’s rapid succession in the face. Thor saw streaks of Yggdrasil flash across his vision. He spit blood and dirt. And held on.

Mjolnir fell from the elf’s hand and landed a distance away, gleaming in the dirt.

Elf and Thor looked at each other, then scrambled to reach her. They grabbed at tunics to drag each other back and growled as they wrestled like children. The elf even bit Thor’s arm.

The giant’s flail sank hard into the ground as it landed again, succinctly ending the elf’s struggle.

Thor stared for a moment at the slender arm protruding at a grotesque angle from beneath the flail’s spikes. He heard the sickening crunch of bone when the monstrous weapon pulled free.

He scrambled to his feet, snatched up the hammer, and began to spin.

Mjolnir’s power sang through his veins as he felt her stir. Felt her grow hot from her core. He heard her shout up to the sky and felt her call into the ground.

He spun her, faster. Faster.

The giant roared, and drew back its flail again. This time, Thor would not run.

Power bunched in the giant’s arm.

Power sparked across Mjolnir’s runes.

The flail launched.

Mjolnir erupted.

Lightning sprang to life somewhere far overhead, thunder quick to follow. Thor lent his voice to call all of it down through the hammer and the clench of muscle along his body as he struck the earth.

All sounded, and the ground split in two.

*****

When the dust at last settled, a great quiet had taken hold of the arena.

Thor looked at the men around him. The warriors scattered and groaning, some of them only then beginning to pick themselves up from the ground. The deafening wake of thunder still rang in their ears.

He looked to his friends, who looked to him, just as dumbstruck.

He looked to the hammer in his hand.

He looked to the sky, where there was not the slightest cloud to indicate where such a storm-brazen strike might have come from.

He looked to the massive crater in the ground, where Mjolnir’s strike had caused cracks to ripple in every direction.

He looked to the stands surrounding the arena, their seats and rails packed full of people.

A hush seized them as they stared.

At last, Odin stepped forward. He had already risen to his feet, as had Sif and Tyr and a good number of other spectators at that first jolt of lightning into the arena. Perhaps expecting an attack.

Odin leaned on his spear.

Even across the distance that separated them, Thor could hear the king’s words.

“You,” he said. “What is your name?”

“Ah...” Thor began, hesitant. His eyes ducked again to the sea of destruction surrounding him. Somehow the Warriors Three had escaped the majority of the blast, though they still had to untangle themselves from their own cloaks and the fall of bodies.

The four of them were the only ones left standing.

“You,” Odin repeated, and tilted his head towards Thor. The dark storm in his singular gaze left no room for misunderstanding. “Your name.”

Thor took a breath.

“Ern...that is, my name is...Th—”

“Your gracious majesty!”

Thor jerked with a start as Loki appeared suddenly, just at this side. He was quite certain he hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Loki swept his arm in a grand gesture over his head and lowered into a bow.

“Please forgive my lord’s stayed tongue. Never before has he stood in such splendid torpulence!” He straightened again, and stepped to one side, indicating Thor and the others with overly theatric gestures. “Nor have we ever blessed our sight with such a grand spectacle as this! Indeed, it is difficult to find words at all to pay just tribute to the boundless honor it is merely to speak. Good Allfather, we are but humble nobles of Vanaheim.”

“Vanaheim?” Odin repeated.

“Vanaheim?” Thor mouthed, frowning aside to Hogun.

Hogun shrugged.

“Yes, sire,” Loki went on, and bowed again.

“I do not recognize your banner.”

“Indeed not, Your Excellence. We are from the furthest reaches of our own realm. A little-known region whose inhabitants are not accustomed to travel far. It is prize beyond measure to be the first of this house to set foot in your arena!”

Odin nodded his acknowledgement at last. His gaze shifted from Thor to Loki. Thor felt the tension promptly ease from his shoulders.

“You speak for these warriors, then?”

“I do, Esteemed One. May I present my lord Thunar!” He indicated Thor with another sweep of his hand, as poised and graceful as an actor.

Thor frowned.

Thunar?

“And my lord Fandral Staghelm, the Dashing!”

Fandral smiled, promptly lifting his hand to wave toward the audience.

“And my lord Hogun, the Grim.”

Hogun did not smile.

“And greatest Volstaff! The...”

“Brave,” Volstagg muttered under his breath. “Imposing. Dauntless. Courageous. Valiant?”

“...Voluminous.”

Volstagg blinked, rather dumbly, but anything else he grumbled remained too low for Thor to hear.

Briefly, Odin’s brow creased, as though in thought. He remained silent a moment, then nodded his head.

“Thunar,” he said, and it took a quick jab from Loki in his ribs for Thor to remember his pseudonym. He straightened, did his best to seem the part of one accustomed to leveling arenas every day before breakfast.

“Y-Yes, my lord?”

Loki shot him a look.

“Sire!” Thor corrected, overly loud. He cleared his throat to be better heard. “My king!” He bowed, stiff and rigid, as much as he could without fear of falling over.

Odin’s expression did not change.

“That weapon you carry. I have not seen it’s like.”

“A family heirloom,” Loki explained. “Passed from my lord Thunar’s father and his father’s father.”

“And why would such powerful warriors of the Vanir wish to lower themselves in the service of Asgard?”

“Lower? You do belittle your own granduer, sire!” Loki touched a hand over his heart and bowed his head. “Alas, our home in the furthest reaches of Vanaheim has been lost to us, destroyed by marauders. My lord Thunar’s father died in a most noble and valiant battle, defending the place of his ancestors to the last breath. It had long been his father’s dream to look upon the golden towers of Asgard once more, as he had not done so since the war with Jotunheim’s end. My lord Thunar now honors that ancient alliance between our people. It will be his pride, priviledge, and pleasure to serve you, Great Allfather.”

Odin stroked his beard for a moment in thought. Thor’s eyes flickered aside to Lady Sif, who raised her brow in dubious expectation.

At last, Odin nodded.

“Then I welcome you, Thunar, and your men.” He gestured. “Will you join us at banquet tonight? I would very much like to hear more of your deeds.”

“Of course, sire.” Loki smiled, and stretched out his hands. “Allow us, then, to also humbly offer this small gift, a token of our good faith and loyalty.”

The ground began to rumble.

“A portion of treasure from our wanderings.”

A mountain of gold appeared suddenly, crashing into the archways surrounding the arena and spilling in as would a floodwater. Piles upon piles of what had been kept in Skrymir’s horde, down to the last coin and jewel, filled the arena to near overflowing. Those warriors not quick enough on their feet to escape were quickly buried under the tide, and would have to dig themselves out later. Only Thor and the Warriors Three remained spared, shielded by Loki’s commanding magic.

Odin raised an eyebrow as his arena became a lake of gold.

“A paltry sum, to be sure,” said Loki easily, shrugging. “But we do hope it adds at least a nominal contribution to your already substantial treasury.”

For once, Odin did not appear to know quite what to say.

*****

Banquet that night was hearty, and heartfelt. Thor and the Warriors Three spent it at Odin’s table, surrounded on all sides by tall kegs of mead, spreads of slaughtered boar, steaming breads and rich cheeses, and enough boisterous Einherjar the play of music filling the great hall was nearly drowned by their voices.

Volstagg all but wept at the sight of the feast.

Fandral quickly found a lovely lady for each arm, who were only too happy to drape themselves across him and slip him a single olive at a time as he told them stories of their adventures. Embellished and exagerrated and made up entirely on the spot.

Hogun offered sparse grunting commentary.

Thor sat among them, laughing and joining in cheers, slamming his drinking stein on the table when the call rose for more mead. He strove to catch Sif’s eye where she sat across the table, next to her father. Though she did regard him with something less than indifference over the course of the evening, she did not speak to him, finding more interest in the stories the warriors told.

There, it was Loki who truly shone.

He seemed content, at first, to stay back beyond the reach of the firelight. Thor saw him cross his arms and smile in the dark with the servants, watching, listening to the feast’s proceedings. It was only when Volstagg and Fandral’s boastful storytelling threatening to contradict each other beneath Odin’s attentive gaze that he stepped in, smoothing over suspicion and easily tossing away any confusion as the result of too much drink.

He spoke for the Thor and the Warriors Three himself, quickly spinning tales from nothing with an effortless grace. With a single gesture he drew figures from the flames of candles to illustrate his words, replaying imagined battles upon the air, conjuring the shadows of monsters for the flames to fight, holding all rapt with his poetry.

Applause and praise went well around. Loki’s audience demanded more. He grinned and obliged and stepped up onto the table, commanding music and dance just as masterfully as he sang ballads of Asgard’s history.

Thor’s eyes shone as he watched, drink forgotten.

It went on well into the night.

At last Thor broke from the feast hall’s warmth into the thinner coolness beyond its walls. He took a drink with him, still gulping its sweet taste. Mind blissfully hazed, he had not noticed precisely at what point Loki slipped away from the revelry, but he saw him now: seated upon the steps outside the hall. A warm cloak with fur lining draped over his shoulders, a cup of steaming drink in his hands.

“Loki!” Thor laughed and sat down beside him, clapping a hand heartily on his shoulder. “Why do you hide out here? You should be back inside. Everyone is asking about you!”

Loki smiled thinly, and sipped his drink.

“I thought I had taken enough of your admirers already,” he murmured over the cup.

“Nonsense! This night is for all of us to celebrate!” Thor laughed, swayed aside as an Einherjar warrior with a lady draped on each arm stumbled down the steps near them. They supported the drunk man with modest giggles, helping guide him away from the hall into the night.

“Now that is celebrating,” Thor grinned, lifting his cup.

“Yes.” Loki hummed. “He’ll be relieved of the great burden of his coinpouch by morning.”

“Don’t be so dour.” Thor clapped his shoulder again. “It will be money well spent!”

Thor stretched himself upon the steps, sighing noisily as he tossed back his hair and looked to the stars. They shone beautifully over Asgard’s inner city, undaunted by brazier fires and glowing lights.

“I suppose we should see to the matter of your freedom.” Thor looked to Loki with an effort for greater meaning.

“I suppose we should,” Loki said.

“What must we do? Is there a ritual involved?”

Loki nodded. He set aside his drink, and opened his palm.

“Let me see your hand.”

Thor held out his hand. Loki took it, gently smoothing over his palm with his fingertips. The sensation was so light it almost tickled and Thor had to suppress the urge to wince and cringe. He met Loki’s eyes, and smiled, biting his bottom lip.

Then yelped in surprise as much as pain as Loki summoned a dagger and stabbed it deep into the center of his hand. Thor pulled immediately away, but Loki held on, directing his hand instead to wrap around Mjolnir’s haft.

Thor felt a pulse of power, the ripple of magic in the air, as his blood dripped down over her handle.

“What are you doing!”

“The pain is less if you do not anticipate it,” said Loki, with no sound of apology. “This is a binding spell.”

“Another one?”

Thor looked down. Runes glowed lightning-blue and white upon the hammer, a light that bled up and over the flow of his own blood and turned it alight as well. He could feel the power build, fall into place, and Loki finally released his hand. Thor pulled it back and closed it into a fist, where the wound throbbed.

“Now you are bound to her, and she to you,” said Loki. He drew a clean cloth from his belt and turned to bind Thor’s hand.

Thor suspected he’d been planning to do such a thing since the arena.

“Bound,” he said flatly. “As we are?”

“Somewhat. No one will be able to lift her, save you.” He demonstrated by reaching out, grabbing hold of the hammer’s grip. Thor’s blood upon it had vanished.

Drawn inside, he thought.

Loki tugged hard, but the hammer would not move. Thor could feel her resistance. Like a barely-there hum at the edge of his senses. A vague feeling of unwanted attention.

“To prevent anyone else from using her,” he murmured.

“Yes. And when you call, she will come.”

“And what of our bond?” Thor flexed his hand. The pain was already subsiding.

Loki turned away.

“One ritual a night is enough, I think.” He went back to sipping his drink.

“Very well.”

They watched the stars, drawn into a moment’s quiet. Thor felt his mind still pleasantly light, despite his hand, and let a smile pull once more at his lips as he thought of the journey that had led them here. Jotunheim and then Loki and then the arena.

“Thank you,” he said, sudden and mawkish. He lifted his unwounded hand to rub at his face. “This is...”

Loki gave him a sidelong glance. For a moment, he said nothing. He turned his gaze back to the stars.

“Why is it so important to become Einherjar?” he murmured at length.

Thor was struck by the question, so obvious in its answer he could not think why Loki had asked. Nor could he immediately think of an answer.

“Because,” he began, and thought hard. “Why would one not? It is the goal of one’s life to improve their standing.”

“And you could not have managed so on your own?”

Thor grumbled and turned his face aside. He pushed a hand over his mouth as he belched.

“Not so impressively,” he muttered.

Loki smiled.

“There is also some satisfaction to be found in anonymity,” he said. “To have no responsibilities.”

Thor made a dismissive sound. He threw his drinking cup, empty by then, the rest of the way down the stairs, just to hear it break.

“Nobody remembers the anonymous,” he grumbled.

Loki’s smile maintained. Soft.

“Ah, but all shall remember the mighty Thunar.”

“Yes!”

Thor laughed, though it died quickly.

Thunar. All would remember the deeds of Thunar and his magnificent hammer, for certain.

But not Thor.

Thor glanced over his shoulder. There was a commotion near the entrance of the feast hall. He looked just in time to see Lady Sif overturn a warrior’s hand in a contest of arm strength.

His thoughts went quickly to happier climes.

“I would not,” Loki advised. “You are smitten and you are drunk. She will make a fool of you.”

“This is my chance to speak to her.” Thor looked to him, near giddy with excitement. “What should I say?”

“What are you capable of not slurring?”

Thor frowned. He looked to Sif, quickly approached by another challenger. He saw her smile flash in the torchlight as she accepted, a touch of predatory delight.

He looked back to Loki.

“Make me speak as you do.”

Loki rasied an eyebrow.

“Quickly!” Thor insisted. “I have not your eloquence, or your way with words. Bestow that upon me, that I may speak to her in your manner.”

“I could,” Loki drawled, “though it would be left to you to explain the sudden change in your voice.”

“You know my meaning.” Thor growled. “Can you?”

“Anything can be taught,” Loki sighed.

“I mean, can you...?” Thor lifted one hand to wiggle his fingers. To which Loki made a face.

“You have already adopted a false name and history,” he said, suddenly scathing. “Do you truly wish to change everything about yourself?”

“But she will be unimpressed with me as I am.”

“Then she will be unimpressed.”

“But I wish her to be!”

“And what of yourself?” Loki snapped. “If you are not what she desires, then you are not. Why change to please her if it means tossing your true self aside?”

Thor stared at him, hesitant before the sudden face of his anger.

He looked again towards Sif, his heart in anguish.

Loki sighed. More calmly, he turned enough to face him. He set his drink aside and took Thor’s hands in his own, holding them gently between them.

He met his eyes.

Thor half expected another stabbing.

“Very well. If you wish to speak to her, speak thus.”

Thor held his breath.

“First, do not challenge her to a contest of strength.”

“What?” Thor frowned immediately. “Why n—?”

“Because every warrior here has done so, and she will mark you no differently. They seek to impress her. The one she will remember is the one who does not. Who already possesses a confidence of his own.”

Thor nodded, though slowly. He thought he could understand.

“Also, do not speak poetry to her. She will have heard enough of that as well.”

“Then what shall I say?”

“Speak plainly,” said Loki. “And speak truthfully. It is your strength, and will mean more to her and do more credit to yourself than any amount of posturing.”

His voice lowered. Grew softer.

“If you must speak, catch her eyes, and then say this...”

His grip tightened around Thor’s hands.

“Being in your presence makes me reconsider speaking at all,” he said then, only a single moment’s hitch in his breath. “Your glance alone is enough. I find myself questioning even the purpose of words when a look, a gesture, steals them from my breath. I know a great many words, yet in times such as these none are so worthy as to disturb your grace. I would be content in simply gazing, witness to perfection, rather than shatter the moment with something as fleeting as a sound.”

Thor stared, his jaw slack. He stared into Loki’s intriguing green eyes and wondered how such sincerity could be feigned. How one could conjure falsehoods so perfectly well.

It was amazing.

“That...” he managed, voice not daring to rise. His stomach felt tight. “...is very good.”

Loki hummed. He smiled, and tilted up his head. He lifted both hands and reached to adjust Thor’s collar, straightening it.

Thor felt his skin overly warm, jarring with the sensation where he touched.

“Good,” said Loki. “See that you remember it.”

“You truly believe those words?”

Thor saw how Loki’s eyes shone in the dark. How their gaze fell upon him soft as starlight.

He saw, but he did not entirely understand.

“I do,” said Loki.

Thor found his smile again. He laughed, and clapped Loki gently at the nape of his neck, squeezing once briefly tight.

He didn’t notice how Loki’s breath caught.

“Thank you,” he said, with such sincerity his throat once again grew thick with it. “For everything.”

Loki said nothing. He only bowed his head. Thor drew away and stood, straightening his appearance. He pushed back his cloak – a new one, freshly replaced after the arena – and checked his breath for odor, then willed high his courage.

“How do I look?” he asked.

Loki’s eyes did not take themselves from his face.

“Like a king.”

Thor grinned, and turned away, confidence in his stride as he climbed the feast hall steps.

Loki did not breathe again until he was gone.

*****

Later, much later, when the feast hall fires had died and all in Asgard slept, Loki walked alone along a canal lining one of the rivers that fed to the shoreline at the city’s edge. This time of night, it was peaceful. Shops along the waterfront had long since closed, and the glowing lights of the city reflected off the black water like a second sky. The barely-there ripple of sound concealed his footsteps as he walked, light across the waterway.

He stopped at a landing. Turning back, he could see through the towers and statuary of the city to where the citadel rose over all. Lit from beneath, it was a golden beacon in the night.

The city lay to one side of him. To the other lay the open black of the sea, an endless sky, and the promise of infinite possibility beyond. All it would take was to walk away from this place.

But his feet did not move.

He did not.

He could not.

Loki felt the trickle of tears over his cheeks first, then the sore rawness at the back of his throat. A single sob jerked his frame, and he lifted one hand as though he could hide his face. As though he could conceal such a display from himself.

He could have run, but he did not.

He did not wish to run.

He wept. The tears that fell sprang from his heart, welled with joy, and sorrow.

And freedom.

*****

The winds of Jotunheim blew under a cold and distant sun. Snow continued to fall in patches, coating already frozen landscapes in new shades of blue and sickly white.

Laufey surveyed his domain. The great and glorious realm of the frost giants.

Which was also now the Jotun Wastes. The Barrenland. The Deceased Kingdom.

One soldier, clad in ill-fitting pieces of green chitin armor, climbed up a bank of collapsed frozen rock.

He bowed to his king.

“Sire,” the soldier rumbled. “It was he. We’re certain of it.”

Laufey said nothing. His cold, crimson glare warned the soldier enough of the consequences should he speak to him false.

“What collapsed the cave?” he rasped, his mouth barely moving to form the words.

“We don’t know, sire. The rune line was broken.” The soldier bowed deeply, bracing himself for his king’s wrath. He held out a gleaming golden object in his hand by way of offering.

An arrowhead.

“Scouts reported sighting a band of Asgardians heading north,” spoke the soldier. “But lost sight of them near the old palace.”

Laufey stared at the arrowhead. He took it in hand. His jaw tightened the barest amount as he closed his fist around it. His fingers tightened, tightened, until blood ran between them, dripping to leave dark stains on the snow.

“Loki,” he hissed.


End file.
